siduction KDE

siduction KDE is a free, open source and modern operating system forked from the aptosid Linux distribution, based on the latest "unstable" branch of the Debian GNU/Linux distro, and built around the eye-candy KDE SC desktop environment. It is oriented towards desktop users who are looking for an alternative to commercial operating systems, such as Windows XP.

Availability, boot options and supported architectures

The KDE edition of siduction can be downloaded as Live DVD ISO images, specifically engineered to support both 64-bit (amd64) and 32-bit (i386) instruction set architectures. The boot prompt is quite complex, allowing users to start the live environment with default options or in safe graphics mode, boot an exiting operating system from the first disk drive, as well as to run a system memory test.

In addition, the user can change the language for the live session (English US is the default one), select a specific timezone, change the source media, add extra kernel parameters, additional boot options and specific drivers.

Fancy desktop environment powered by KDE SC

As its name suggests, siduction KDE features the beautiful and productive KDE Plasma Workspace and Applications desktop environment. It provides users with a modern graphical session comprised of a single taskbar located at the bottom edge of the screen, from where they can quickly access the main menu, launch applications and interact with running programs.

Default applications include the ExpoBlending exposure blending software, digiKam photo management program, KTorrent torrent downloader, Kopete instant messenger, Konqueror and Iceweasel web browsers, K3b CD/DVD/BD burning software, VLC Media Player, and Kaffeine video player.

Bottom line

All in all, siduction KDE is a beautiful, stable and reliable operating system that showcases the latest Debian GNU/Linux technologies into a Linux distribution powered by the resource hungry KDE Software Compilation. Separate siduction editions with the GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, Razor-qt and LXQt desktop environments are availble for download on Softoware.

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:

• KDE SC has matured to version 4.14.2, which is one of the last iterations of the KDE 4 chapter. We have taken Kickoff menu out and implemented Homerun instead. Systemsettings has two new modules that debian does (not yet) have. One of them is called ‘Desktop Search Advanced and is a more detailed configuration module for Baloo, the successor of Nepomuk. Also, as a second search agent for Baloo besides Dolphin we have integrated Milou into the panel. The other new module in systemsettings is labeled Systemd and ships a plethora of options that can be of tremendous help with configuring the systemd daemon.
• You can safely assume this is the last siduction release shipping software from KDE's fourth cycle. Our next release will ship Frameworks 5 and Plasma 5.

What is new in version 2016.1:

• KDE SC has matured to version 4.14.2, which is one of the last iterations of the KDE 4 chapter. We have taken Kickoff menu out and implemented Homerun instead. Systemsettings has two new modules that debian does (not yet) have. One of them is called ‘Desktop Search Advanced and is a more detailed configuration module for Baloo, the successor of Nepomuk. Also, as a second search agent for Baloo besides Dolphin we have integrated Milou into the panel. The other new module in systemsettings is labeled Systemd and ships a plethora of options that can be of tremendous help with configuring the systemd daemon.
• You can safely assume this is the last siduction release shipping software from KDE's fourth cycle. Our next release will ship Frameworks 5 and Plasma 5.

What is new in version 14.1.0:

• KDE SC has matured to version 4.14.2, which is one of the last iterations of the KDE 4 chapter. We have taken Kickoff menu out and implemented Homerun instead. Systemsettings has two new modules that debian does (not yet) have. One of them is called ‘Desktop Search Advanced and is a more detailed configuration module for Baloo, the successor of Nepomuk. Also, as a second search agent for Baloo besides Dolphin we have integrated Milou into the panel. The other new module in systemsettings is labeled Systemd and ships a plethora of options that can be of tremendous help with configuring the systemd daemon.
• You can safely assume this is the last siduction release shipping software from KDE's fourth cycle. Our next release will ship Frameworks 5 and Plasma 5.