Good News on Linux Lite

Greetings!

You were expecting a review of Ghost BSD, well that’s coming, hopefully this weekend. But I just heard this little bit of great news from Linux Lite: Series 5.x will have no added PPAs!!

All those extra PPAs have been a source of update woes, regressions, malfunctions, and frustrations to Linux Lite users for far too long. There were even PPAs in there for software that was already available to Linux Lite users in the Ubuntu repositories (Linux Lite is based on Ubuntu) without the added PPAs, which I think is counter to Linux Lite’s purpose. Aimed at new users and non-technical users, particularly those coming to Linux from Windows, Linux Lite aims to be the easiest “newbie distro” while remaining lightweight for use on older, modest hardware.

“Emerald,” the codename for Linux Lite 5 series, will have no added PPAs at all. That is the best possible news for Lite users who have been put off by the constant update issues that have plagued the distro in the past. When I was using it, one of the first things I always did was to eliminate all those extra PPAs, so I was able to dodge many of those update problems. I also removed them in new installations of Linux Lite for computers I was refurbishing for others.

Other improvements include some great new Tweaks in the Lite toolbox that accomplish lots of maintenance tasks with a few mouse clicks. One of the new ones is a way to clean up the crazy huge Systemd logs that accumulate on the users’ hard drive:

My friend Ralphy is no longer maintaining UnlockMe for Linux Lite, which was one of the tools I found especially useful on Lite, but lookie here! Much of his familiar and brilliant coding shows up in Lite Tweaks, which is maintained and even improved upon. I’m very glad to see this!

In my book these new developments will elevate Linux Lite 5.x series above even the venerable Linux Mint for introducing Linux to newcomers.