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EasyOS Kirkstone-series version 5.0

February 26, 2023 — BarryK

I started work on the Kirkstone-series early in December 2022. There have been two Release Candidates, discussed in this forum thread:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=8072

I also receive feedback via direct email. Finally looking OK, so version 5.0 is now out. Here is a summary:

Almost all of the packages in EasyOS Kirkstone-series are compiled from source, using a fork of OpenEmbedded (OE) Kirkstone-release. Almost all package versions are updated, compared with the Dunfell-series (the previous EasyOS release, last of which is version 4.5.5, released January 10, 2023).
Apart from new package versions, many bug fixes and many improvements, there is one other major improvement; the abandonment of "langpack" language translation packages, as well as abandonment of language-specific builds. Now, there is just one file to download, the required language is chosen at first bootup, and the User Interface is then rendered in that language. More or less; French is just about complete, second is German.
MoManager is a GUI translation tool, that has its roots ten years ago in Puppy Linux; it has been extensively rewritten, to make it an easy experience for anyone to contribute translations. As a great aid, it features automatic translation using Google or Bing, that the user just needs to scan for correctness.
As always, EasyOS includes just about every application most users would want builtin, including Chromium, LibreOffice, Inkscape, Gimp, Gparted, SolveSpace, Homebank, etc., etc.
Easy does not ship with a ISO file, only a drive-image file, that can easily be written to a USB-stick, or opened up for direct install to internal hard drive.

The obligatory snapshot; this is on a 1024x768 monitor, the smallest supported size:

img1

Easy will work on an old computer, as long as it has a 64-bit x86 CPU. When the drive-image is written to a USB-flash-stick, it will boot on legacy-BIOS and UEFI-firmware PCs. I tested 5.0 on an old Compaq Presario, Intel Core2 Duo CPU with only 2GB RAM; Easy runs great.

More screen shots:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2023/5.0/snapshots/

Package versions are listed here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2023/5.0/pkg-lists/

Release notes:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2023/5.0/release-notes.htm

If all you know are ISO files and unfamiliar how to write a drive-image (.img) file to USB-stick or open it up, this page will help:

https://easyos.org/install/how-to-write-easyos-to-a-flash-drive.html

Download 'easy-5.0-amd64.img' from here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2023/5.0/

...note, there is also an md5sum checksum in file 'md5sum.txt'.

We welcome feedback! EasyOS has a section in the Puppy Linux Forum, and a thread for version 5.0 is here:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=8117

If you would like to help out with translating, there is also this thread:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=8070

If you are new to EasyOS and want to get a quick overview, see here:

https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.html

Have fun!      

Tags: easy