Salih Emin of Utappia announced a few days ago the availability of the new version of his unique GNU/Linux distribution iQunix. For those of you who haven’t read our interview with Salih Emin, iQunix is an “empty” Ubuntu, meaning that the user decides what to install, thus avoiding the sometimes many unneeded extras that come with an out of the box Ubuntu installation.
This is a version that brings a ton of positive changes and additions for this great distribution, and also some very interesting development decisions.
First of all, from this version and on, iQunix will be based only on LTS versions of Ubuntu securing optimum stability and great reliability for those of you who will choose to use it. Another decision is to release 64-bit iso only, which I find completely logical and strategically “correct” for such distributions. Another big decision Salih had to make on this version was the choice of the default desktop environment. iQunix 12.04 comes with Unity which for technical reasons is the wisest choice right now for any Ubuntu based distro.
The highlights of this version include the latest release of Costantine Apostolou’s web browser called JetBrowser, and the inclusion of the Ubuntu Software Center for easier search and installation of applications.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/dTq_lPcF8tU[/youtube]
iQunix is a really powerful tool for every desktop user or professional that wants to build a specialized operating system to cover exact and specific needs, while in the same time having the support of the biggest Linux community that is Ubuntu. If you are an advanced user who likes the plethora of packages that Ubuntu repositories offer, but don’t want all the out-of the box stuff that come with Ubuntu, then you should definitely give iQunix a try. For those of you who are not very advanced, iQunix would be a great and somewhat safe way to start playing with Linux in slightly deeper waters!
