Christian Linux Users

11 w

C4C Ubuntu 24.04 was released on September 2, 2024. https://computers4christians.org/ . It is based on the new Xubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. It is Xubuntu with Christian bookmarks and Christian software added. Like C4C Ubuntu 22.04 it includes the Calamares installer rather than the Ubiquity installer that standard Xubuntu has. One drawback to that if you are using a touchpad, you have to use the keyboard and the tab key to go into the settings and click "Mouse and touchpad" and set your Device for Touchpad and move to the Touchpad tab and enable Tap touchpad to click and the method of scrolling you want to use, most commonly it is two-finger scrolling. You have to do that again to the installed page after you have installed it. You have several options of whether to erase the previous operating system and install the new version, or to install it alongside another operating system or manually partition it. I choose manual partition since I wanted more control over the size of the swap partition and I wanted to install it on a USB hard drive.

Once I enabled touchpad it has been working well for me. Mozilla Firefox is the included browser with several bookmarks for Christian web sites. Many other browsers are available in the app store including the Brave browser. But, if you use another browser as your default, you would need to change the links on several online desktop links to go to that other browser.

Several Christian games, Christian Bible resources are included. The Xiphos Bible Guide, Bibletime and the Ezra Bible App are included. However, I did not see the Indonesian language available even though there are many Christians who speak that language. There are many Christian Bible materials in Indonesian that are available online.
The default desktop does not have a wallpaper, but a wallpaper can easily be installed on a desktop. The wallpaper in the image is in the backdrops folder.

Gnash is included as a snap for running some games which need a flask effect. Snap requires systemd. It is much harder to install Gnash on a non-systemd distro, such as Devuan.

VLC is the included media player. LibreOffice is the office client.

Overall this is a good way to install the latest LTS of Xubuntu with Christian software. If you have WIndows and you want to make calls using WhatsApp it is best to dual boot with Windows as the Linux and web versions of WhatsApp do not allow video or audio calling. I would have preferred it would work better out of the box for touchpad users. Although, Debian installs also require tweaking to get touchpad to work. Some people who prefer non-Ubuntu distros might rather stay with their current distro as their daily driver. I am considering replacing my Devuan install on my laptop with C4C Ubuntu 24.04, but I don't know if I should do that.

11 w

Ubuntu C4C Ubuntu 24.04 has just been released. It is based on the new Xubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. I want to review this distro when I have time. https://computers4christians.o....rg/download/install-

1 y

Devuan Daedalus 5.0 was released on August 15, 2023. It is based on Debian 12. Devuan does not use the controversial systemd. Instead the user has a choice of using SysVInit, OpenRC, or runit for the init system. I am currently using runit. runit boots up Devuan very fast. I am using the default Xfce 4.18.1 which as of September 18, 2023 is the latest version. In addition to using Xfce, the user has a choice of installing KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, MATE, or LXQt.

INSTALLER
I used the network installer, because it doesn't take much space on a flash drive. This is a Debian installer with the choice of a graphical or standard installer. I choose the standard installer as it works better with a laptop without a mouse. There is a basic installation and an advanced installation. I choose the basic installation as it is easier to use. The only bootloader available in the basic installation is grub2 which works well with a multiple boot setup and can boot into an external hard drive.

DEFAULT SOFTWARE
The default browser is Firefox-ESR. Some other browsers are available in the repository. Additional repositories can be added for those wanting to use Librewolf, Waterfox, Pale Moon, SeaMonkey, or Brave. Mousepad is included for writing text. LibreOffice is the office suite. Parole Media Player is included for playing videos. Other video players such as MPV and vlc are in the repository for those who have video or audio formats that the included players don't play. Quod Libet is the included audio player. xfce4-terminal is the included terminal. The included terminal is usual the terminal of the desktop that you installed. The included file browser is usually the standard file browser of the desktop that you installed. For Xfce it is Thunar. An email client is not included, but Thunderbird and other email clients are available in the repository. Synaptic is included which lists software packages and can be used to install software. Like other operating systems in the Debian tree, Apt can also be used to installing and updating software.

DISPLAY MANAGER
The default display manager for the Xfce edition is Slim. Slim is lightweight. The disadvantage fo Slim is that GNOME keyring will not work if Slim is set to automatically load the desktop. I use Slim to automatically load, and I am not using browsers that use GNOME keyring. Browsers that use GNOME keyring include browsers with the Blink layout engine such as Brave, and the Epiphany browser (Web). Browsers in the FIrefox family and Pale Moon do not use GNOME keyring. Other desktop environments ship with other display managers.

REVIEW
Devuan works very smoothly. It is well liked by many GNU/Linux users. It currently has the second highest rating on Distrowatch.com of distros with at least 100 votes. It is the highest rating for distros which use apt and the highest rating of point release distros. Some other distros which use different windows managers are based on Devuan.

1 y

One install that I currently have is Slackware 15.0. Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distro. it is not as easy to setup as distros in the Debian tree. Slackware uses SysVInit and uses Lilo or Elilo as the default bootloader depending on whether the user has a MBR or EFI. Slackware has the option of using Grub2 as the bootloader. Slackware includes Firefox, SeaMonkey, Falkon, and Konqueror for browsing. The user has the choice of using KDE, Xfce, Fluxbox, Windowmaker, Blackbox, fvwm, and twm plus other desktops that a user could use from third party repositories or build from source. Any Bible software would have to be built from source.

If, the user wants to use a generic kernel, and there is a new updated kernel, the user would need to update the kernel, make an initial RAM disk, and update Lilo or Grub. I couldn't get the generic kernel working with elilo. The huge kernel does work with elilo.

Slackware 15.0 has rock solid stability. But, I prefer an operating system that takes less time to configure; such as Devuan or Ubuntu. I will review Devuan Daedalus 5.0 next

1 y

More photos of my C4C Ubuntu 22.04 install.