PureOS 8.0 Linux distribution

As I have ordered the Librem 5 phone dev-kit, which will have a PureOS-based distribution on it, I thought that probably the upcoming docs might assume a host development PC to be running their x86_64 PureOS, so I installed it. Downloaded from here:

http://downloads.puri.sm/live/gnome/2018-05-30/

Burnt it to a DVD, booted and the menu offered "Test or Install", which booted up running in RAM. Clicking top-left, some icons dropdown, and I chose "install", which runs the "PureOS Installer".

It is quite a nice installer. I was able to chose one partition that had nothing in it (sda5), and not to install a boot manager (as I already have ReFind, that I will edit manually). I took the precaution of unplugging one of the hard drives, my main work drive.

It installed OK, except changed some of the drive partition numbering, which was odd. Even odder, it changed the labels on all of the partitions -- unexpected and not nice!

Also, it changed the hardware clock to UTC, whereas I have it set to localtime. I hate it when an installer does that. It is saying, to hell with the other OSs, this is how it is going to be! There was nowhere after bootup to choose UTC or localtime for the hardware clock. Later, I booted Easy and changed the hardware clock back to localtime. Then rebooting PureOS, it was still correct time, as it was reading it from the Internet.

The file manager is the usual awful Gnome thing, so dumbed down.

One more thing: at first bootup it asked for a new password, and there was a checkbox to bootup without password -- except it doesn't work, requires a password.

Using PureOS was OK, just a matter of getting familiar with where everything is, but whenever I test a Linux distro, I always feel relieved when I get back to Easy/Quirky/Puppy.

Here is the PureOS website:

https://pureos.net/

Back in mid-2016, I compared the Ubuntu and Debian installers:

http://bkhome.org/news/201606/installers-for-debian-vs-ubuntu.html

Tags: linux