The last versions of Bento Openbox Remix come with the mozilla ppa, fit for Firefox and for Thunderbird.
(Thus snap isn’t installed). It is presented at and available from https://linuxvillage.org/en
I just started it in Virtualbox and launched the htop processes manager. (My own install having several heavy programs would not be the right example to show).
PS : it has been out since 2012, though there was not yet a full English + a full French version available until recently.
More on Anduin
Installed ubuntu-pro-client … the result:
SERVICE AVAILABLE DESCRIPTION
anbox-cloud yes Scalable Android in the cloud
esm-apps yes Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications
esm-infra yes Expanded Security Maintenance for Infrastructure
landscape yes Management and administration tool for Ubuntu
livepatch yes Current kernel is not covered by livepatch
realtime-kernel yes Ubuntu kernel with PREEMPT_RT patches integrated
usg yes Security compliance and audit tools
For a list of all Ubuntu Pro services, run 'pro status --all'
This machine is not attached to an Ubuntu Pro subscription.
See https://ubuntu.com/pro
Kernels covered by livepatch are listed here: https://ubuntu.com/security/livepatch/docs/kernels
Which is neat - Mint requires a few hacks for this to work.
Ubuntu Pro should only apply to those versions of Anduin based on the LTS of Ubuntu - and so shouldn’t be available for AnduinOS 1.4 - due in late October. That said - there would be no point in using Ubuntu Pro until the install is approaching end of support.
Looking again at a news site - the load was both CPUs maxed while pages were loading - then settling down to roughly 75% (three windows open). With uBlock blocking ads - more like 50% (reduced by about a third). Another good reason for an ad blocker.
This on an old Dell OptiPlex 960 - Core 2 Duo E8400 (2) @ 3.00 GHz - with Intel 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics. RAM - 1.54 GiB / 7.60 GiB (20%).
Found out that Anduin 1.4 (based on Ubuntu 25.10) should be out in late October - with 1.5 (Ubuntu 26.04 LTS) due late April next year. Apparently the priority for now is for AnduinOS to have its own software repositories fully implemented by 1.5. That will make upgrades between versions possible.
You’ve probably noticed by now at what passes for an Apps Store - a webpage with lots of command line “how tos”. This is not something all that great for people transitioning from Windows (unless they’re a wiz with DOS). This was a deal breaker for a lot of Linux people online commenting about this distro (many were shocked). OTOH - the ‘Application store’ web pages could be a handy reference for anything Debian based.
For the above drawback I’ve gone cold on AnduinOS as a recommendation for Windows users transitioning to Linux. Maybe in a few years time when it’s version two or three - or at least when they have a proper Apps Store.
The developer behind this needs to get a few more people on board to help - as well as some funding to develop AnduinOS further. This is eminently doable. This distro has great potential.
Otherwise - I’m still thinking “How long will AnduinOS stick around for?”.
Later this week I’ll try a dive into Vanilla OS - just loaded it onto the HP Pavilion - took ages to install & update all the flatpacks. Also want to look at Aurora OS (another immutable) - which has different ISOs depending on GPU.
That’s a completely valid point, and you’re certainly not the only one to bring it up. The lack of a proper application store in some distributions can definitely discourage users coming from Windows, who naturally expect a clean, graphical interface for installing software.
That said, Ubuntu and its variants actually offer well-designed graphical interfaces to install, browse, and manage applications without needing to touch the terminal. Here are a few examples:
apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
pip install bauh
bauh
These tools help avoid that “command line only” impression, which often scares off potential new users. They play a crucial role in ensuring a smooth and approachable migration experience.
So while **AnduinOS might not be fully ready yet for less technical users, Ubuntu and its variants already offer viable alternatives with a much more accessible out-of-the-box experience.
Regarding Aurora OS, I’ve started exploring it as well, and I have to say it shows a lot of promise. The fact that it offers different ISOs depending on the GPU is a smart move. It suggests real attention to hardware compatibility, which is often overlooked in newer distros.
That said, I would not recommend Vanilla OS at this stage, at least not for general use or for anyone without advanced Linux experience. It’s still quite experimental and too difficult to manage for most users and even tech-savvy ones. The setup takes time, the layering and immutability model can quickly become frustrating, and the reliance on Flatpak for everything adds complexity rather than simplifying things.
In my opinion, Aurora OS is more grounded and realistic in its goals and much easier to support if we’re thinking about wider deployment in a community or Repair Café context. Vanilla OS might become something great one day, but for now, it’s not ready.
We also have to acknowledge that we can’t always hold everyone’s hand through the entire process. If someone genuinely wants to switch to Linux without too many complications, then the best approach is to stick with well-established distributions like Ubuntu, Lubuntu, etc.
In that case, it’s better to stay with “pure” distributions, the kind that already have most things set up out of the box, where you don’t have to fight the system just to get the basics working.
But then again… is that really the right solution?
We’re already living in a world where the smallest effort feels unbearable to some. Are we really helping people by giving them only the most convenient option? Or are we just reinforcing the same habits that created tech dependency in the first place?
More on AnduinOS
Before I only only looked at 1.1 because it was the LTS. Now - seeing 1.3 - there’s a proper GUI Apps Store (‘Software’ from Gnome) - which works.
With 1.3 - while doing nothing - RAM use = 1.2 GB (same as 1.1). With Firefox having 6 windows open 3.2 GB (vs 2.6 for 1.1 - & 2.9 for Mint). Though I didn’t try all three with the exact same windows.
The next LTS (1.5) is still a year away. But given there’s now an easy to use software store - it’s back to me recommending it - with the proviso that people upgrade to 1.5 when available.
Though would be nice if the Shutdown & Reboot was easy to find.
I’d love to get feedback for Bento Openbox Remix, before I try to port it to Debian (mainly because Ubuntu lacks 32bits versions, but not only for this reason).
BTW, The Gnome or Ubuntu Software Center can usually be installed from the Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu derivatives.
A few more Linux distributions which seem worth trying, when testing Linux on very old computers, all coming with recent developments and providing 64bits and 32bits versions:
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ “The New DSL 2024 has been reborn as a compact Linux distribution tailored for low-spec x86 computers (…)”
https://debian-facile.org/dflinux/isos/ (Debian Facile is “Debian made easy”)
Source for the information (in French): https://fr.linuxadictos.com/4-distributions-Linux-légères-qui-prennent-toujours-en-charge-le-32-bits.html
I just can’t recommend any distro that doesn’t have everything ‘out of the box’. That’s like saying to a repair volunteer (who may be new to Linux themselves) “There’s this great distro - but you’ll need to tinker with it for at least half an hour in the terminal - within the time constraints of a Repair Cafe session”. I see ‘gnome-software’ in Synaptic.
Be good to try AnduinOS on an iMac to check it’s hardware support (sound chips) - which is where Mint usually falls over. Don’t have a spare one right now.
iMac? What’s that? 
Haha…
BUT jokes aside → AnduinOS runs fine on a Power Mac G5, and I’ve also tested it successfully on iMac 2013 and 2016 models. No major issues so far. That said, I really recommend upgrading to 8GB of RAM, or even 16GB if possible, because Apple’s UV-lamp-inspired machines are a disaster in terms of memory and overall fluidity. Performance is just painful otherwise. 
I also have an old G4 running on an older kernel and I tested Anduin on it in live mode before install, and it did boot and connect properly. That said, it was pretty slow, as expected… but it launched the setup nonetheless.
Of course, hardware compatibility can always vary slightly depending on the specific config (especially audio and Wi-Fi), but overall, it works.
As for the package manager or software installer, honestly, it just takes two or three lines in the terminal to get a very simple software manager up and running.
Alternatively, Flatpak with a GUI works really well. I tested it on Anduin and it only shows available and compatible apps. It even prevents you from installing unstable or unsupported packages, which is a nice safety net.
It uses a clear system:
That said, LibreWolf is available and works great, it’s a much better option in my opinion.
You can also remaster the Anduin OS ISO and pre-install the missing packages and add a software manager, then share the updated version here, internally or via my FTP servers.
If you’re interested… it’s totally doable 
Bento Openbox Remix
Had a look. Ran on the Core 2 Duo. First - the installer starts off as though it’s frozen - unresponsive. At first I thought it just didn’t like Ventoy so I went off to burn the image to another USB stick. By the time I’d done that the installer had launched just fine. Same behaviour with the non-Ventoy USB.
Question - there are separate ISOs for English & French - yet within the installer there’s a choice of different languages. I take it that’s just for the installer itself - Ubiquity?
I honestly laughed out loud seeing DeaDBeeF as the music player (and then had to explain hex to the Store Manager) - nice touch. It installs Gimp out of the box - just thought that’s an odd choice for a lightweight distro.
When updating package list - you always get a load of warnings like:
W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:39 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources:2
Would be good to fix this.
It supports Ubuntu Pro. No snaps - so is there a preference for flatpack or debs (no gdebi)? So that people can easily work with deb packages have a look at Captain - a (properly maintained) offering from the people at Mint.
Uses only 770-780 MiB RAM when idle. With six windows open in Firefox - just under 2 GiB (+ CPU load 13%) - not bad!
With AnduinOS there looks to be a few issues that I’ll try to investigate next week. One’s a bug with the Uniquity installer that may affect Bento as well.
Hello Len,
Thank you for your feedback. I am going to update the ISO within a few days, and look into the sources.list issue you are pointing to, to fix it, at same time. In fact, I should have removed /etc/apt/sources.list, as now the file is in /etc/apt/sources.list.d and is written differently.
You can try to move the old one out of the way and check if it works right once done:
cd /etc/apt
sudo mv sources.list sources.list.bak
sudo apt update
There are 2 separate ISOs for French and English : because it is the best I could do to have a clean boot stanza and clean menus and everything in the desktop for the live versions.
Ubuntu used to provide a choice for many languages at the start of the Live, since EFI appeared, and Grub boot stanzas in live, they don’t do it anymore. So in the previous Bento Remix versions the live boot stanza started to have a bizarre choice of entries with both French and English mixed up.
I don’t use a build server as official editors do either (which would be better, but is out of my league). At the moment, I use CUBIC, which works well.
From there, you can indeed choose the language of your choosing when you install.
Yes, gdebi isn’t installed, you can install it using the Synaptic package manager. You can also install the Gnome Software package if you want more, the distribution makes use of the regular repositories (plus two PPAs, one for the Mozilla packages, one for the Chromium package, so the main components for everyday don’t need snap to run in the background).
so is there a preference for flatpack or debs
No preference at all, I try to keep it simple and not too heavy, while making it flexible so you can set it up to your liking. So, if you want to use flatpak, you can install flatpak, same for gdebi, and for snap.
Gimp : I think it is a must have, for all image editing software purpose. However, if you don’t, you can remove it, using the Synaptic package manager, or the command line. Light is good, but it is all about balance between lightness, ease to use for all, and having it work on as many computers belonging to end users as possible.
One tip : if the target computer lacks RAM, and does not use a Nvidia GPU, you can reinstall the package zram-config after install. It is installed in the live, it is removed in the post-install stanza, because it often triggers a freeze when used along with Nvidia, which we don’t want to happen… (At a time, I had discussions by mail with the developper of the Lubuntu community project - supported by Canonical - who I was asking tips for the Bento project, I told him about ZRAM, and since then they also have zram-config in the live stanzas, which is nice!)
(zram-config is the tool which loads the ZRAM module, and configures this setup : it creates a virtual block device in RAM, which is compressed system memory - in short this is swap in RAM, so more RAM for the system).
About DeadBeef (d34db33f), I never new what it refers to exactly, in HEX, would you be able to explain it to me? 
Hi,
@Len I have updated Bento Openbox Remix. With this link : https://downloads.linuxvillage.org/?C=M;O=D it will show at the top of the list. (Or just below the first when I’ll have also updated the French version, in a few minutes).
The system has been updated, the console now has a green @ for the user, and a red one for the administrator, (if you use “sudo -s” or “sudo -i”), and I removed a few packages to make it a tad smaller. (Libreoffice-draw and its depends, gsmartcontrol, and geany are gone, but it is still easy to install whatever is desired).
Yep - renaming sources.list to sources.list.bak fixed that. I see the warnings have disappeared in the new ISO.
Hoping you could consider including gdebi for the sake of people transitioning from Windows (or Mac). According to synaptic it’s only 156kb extra (gdebi + gdebi-core). Myself - I’m happy using dpkg.
I’m surprised there isn’t an alternative to Gimp that’s a bit more basic & lightweight. Shows how rarely I deal with images.
Will switching to Debian give poorer hardware support? Basically the “Install third-part software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware” button in the installer. The reason many prefer Ubuntu. Also - I take it Debian will kill Ubuntu Pro support. A pity - but not that important.
For DeaDBeef - it’s just one of those words that can be spelt out in hex - Hexspeak (scroll down for 0xDEADBEEF) - & used by IBM, Mac & others for memory & debugging.
Tried the new ISO. Still annoying how the installer seems to hang. Will likely confuse or put off a lot of people.
LibreOffice Draw is my go-to for manipulating PDFs - really useful. Sure you want to remove it?
Seems there’s an unresolved bug with the Ubiquity installer that can affect AnduinOS. Next week I want to try to reproduce this on Anduin - and as Bento also uses Ubiquity - with Bento as well.
Yep - renaming sources.list to sources.list.bak fixed that. I see the warnings have disappeared in the new ISO.
I thought so.
Hoping you could consider including gdebi for the sake of people transitioning from Windows (or Mac). According to synaptic it’s only 156kb extra (gdebi + gdebi-core). Myself - I’m happy using dpkg.
Well it appears it does not pull in too much when it comes to dependancies, so ok. You should however tell your users the benefits of using the package management system over other ways of installing applications, and to look for a PPA first if a package does not exist in the repositories. (Benefits in words of security, the packages being checked by the package manager against a GPG key once downloaded and before installing, and in words of management of the updates, of course).
I’m surprised there isn’t an alternative to Gimp that’s a bit more basic & lightweight. Shows how rarely I deal with images.
It depends what you want to do. Gimp provides many features, some can be found in other tools… Gimp has always been considered as a must have in provided GNU/Linux distributions.
Will switching to Debian give poorer hardware support? Basically the “Install third-part software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware” button in the installer. The reason many prefer Ubuntu. Also - I take it Debian will kill Ubuntu Pro support. A pity - but not that important.
I don’t think the hardware support is lower in Debian. That would be incredible, considering the number of contributers and users, and also Ubuntu has to give back to Debian when improving programs, since they use the Debian SID edition to build Ubuntu. And it will not “kill” the Ubuntu Pro support : it just does not have to exist in Debian, because Debian is a community project, (there is a constitution and an old manifesto) whereas Ubuntu is a proprietary project. (IE: Support over 5 computers will need payment, and also there is a possibility that the program retrieves data related to the applications being used).
Debian : it is one of the 3 eldest distribution projects still alive, along with Slackware and Redhat. (See the Timeline)
The Ubuntu licence is “kind of” dual, with a part of incompatibility with the Free Software Foundation. Here is an article : https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-updated-licensing-terms
And here is the page from Ubuntu:
Any redistribution (…). Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries. This does not affect your rights under any open source licence applicable to any of the components of Ubuntu
The distribution I provide using Ubuntu is ok as long as I append “Remix” in its name. This tells it is not an officially supported edition.
What Debian will bring : 32 and 64bits altogether, the support from a large community, stability, reliance. I will still continue to provide Ubuntu derivated versions, because the LTS rythm of publication is good to have, as well as the PPA packages. So depending on the users and their needs, they will be able to choose one or the other.
For DeaDBeef - it’s just one of those words that can be spelt out in hex - Hexspeak (scroll down for 0xDEADBEEF) - & used by IBM, Mac & others for memory & debugging.
I had a look, thank you, this is interesting (for my part, from a cultural point of view)
Tried the new ISO. Still annoying how the installer seems to hang. Will likely confuse or put off a lot of people.
I might have a solution. I tried looking into an eventual prelinking but that would not work, as the program is entirely written in Python (which is interpreted, so slower than compiled programs directly executed by the computer), I tried prelinking the Python binary, didn’t work. But then I tried Calamares, and it worked. However I don’t have a setup for Bento, so I used the Lubuntu Calamares Setup.
I’ll rebuild one with that setup, and then I will need some people to look into adapting the two related packages for Bento Openbox. I can’t take the time to do it, because I’m working on other projects (one meant to ease the pre-diagnosis stage in computer refurbishing, using a lightened Live Linux distribution - no installer needed).
LibreOffice Draw is my go-to for manipulating PDFs - really useful. Sure you want to remove it?
Do you use it only for adding information in prebuilt fields? Have you tried Okular, Evince, and PDF-Arranger? (I had tried sometimes to use Libreoffice-draw to edit PDF’s, I thought it was a nightmare).
Seems there’s an unresolved bug with the Ubiquity installer that can affect AnduinOS. Next week I want to try to reproduce this on Anduin - and as Bento also uses Ubiquity - with Bento as well.
I see, some people say it still affects them. An easy turn around : install the second drive with the Linux distribution in another computer, add it to the target machine after. Then in your system, install Grub-Customizer using this PPA : https://launchpad.net/~danielrichter2007/+archive/grub-customizer
and use it to add the Windows boot stanza to your GRUB bootloader.
After several trials and errors, I put up a Bento Openbox Remix with Calamares. I have removed more applications, added gdebi, and left zram-config installed in post-installation process.
Also, I chose the lowest compression algorythm, thus the ISO is still large, but it should boot much faster.
Please, give it a try : https://downloads.linuxvillage.org/experimental/?C=M;O=D
(I advise you don’t try the Debian version, as it was a mockup for the future Live Build we are now working on at Github).
With the proviso that PPAs are too often only maintained for distros based on the LTS of Ubuntu. Not an issue with Bento - but not good for, say, AnduinOS. Obviously not an issue with Debian.
It depends what you want to do. Gimp provides many features, some can be found in other tools…
I just know that for Macs there’s GraphicConverter - a great alternative to Photoshop. Relatively lightweight, much simpler to use - yet powerful. A pity there’s no equivalent in Linux.
I don’t think the hardware support is lower in Debian.
Just know that Ubuntu doesn’t shy away from including propriety drivers ‘out of the box’. Don’t know Debian’s policy on this. Mint’s not good on Macintosh (sound). Haven’t tried Debian on a Mac.
Support over 5 computers will need payment, and also there is a possibility that the program retrieves data related to the applications being used
AFAIK - Ubuntu only want basic contact info so that if they see the Pro token being used on more than five computers - they have somewhere to send an email saying “Wassup bro?”
Do you use it only for adding information in prebuilt fields? Have you tried Okular, Evince, and PDF-Arranger?
Mainly for those PDF forms & invoices you get emailed. Draw can add fields, change their size, change fonts & so on. Can’t see that in Okular. Never tried Evince or PDF-Arranger because Draw is always there.
For anything more involved I use Scribus. Scribus lets you pick apart a complex PDF, edit images, change colours, save components separately - and then put it all back together again however you please.
Of course - you always receive those forms from someone using Windows - with many of the fonts not embedded. So they can look pretty horrible on Linux - especially corporate logos that always use some arcane font.
I meant to raise Linux font support as an issue here ages ago but never did. I’ll try to do that later today or tomorrow “Fonts - Windows vs Linux”. Something to consider for anyone transitioning from Windows 10 - dragging across piles of Word documents included in their backups.
I’ll try Bento with Calamares on Monday when I’m next in.
PPAs
With the proviso that PPAs are too often only maintained for distros based on the LTS of Ubuntu. Not an issue with Bento - but not good for, say, AnduinOS. Obviously not an issue with Debian.
I don’t know about AnduinOS, never tried it. I tried Winux once, (when its name was LinuxFX, or so) it was already mimic-ing Windows 11. I disliked it very much.
In Debian you can add sources, in Ubuntu, some PPA follow the LTS, but not all (ex : grub-customizer doesn’t, there is a source for each edition)
GIMP:
I just know that for Macs there’s GraphicConverter - a great alternative to Photoshop. Relatively lightweight, much simpler to use - yet powerful. A pity there’s no equivalent in Linux.
Maybe you would like XNView. It is not Free Software but there is a free version (no cost) here: https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/ (look down right, Linux, there is a deb and an appimage). There are also other tools there: XNconvert for instance : https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/
converseen : it is in the repos, you can give it a try. It allows flipping and converting formats, on one image or on batches.
How to find equivalents for all applications : on the web. Often you can find information at the https://alternativeto.net website. Here: https://alternativeto.net/software/mac-graphic-converter/
I am still learning about some of them, while answering your post. See this one for example, http://www.graphicsmagick.org/
GraphicsMagick is the swiss army knife of image processing. Comprised of 284K physical lines (according to David A. Wheeler’s SLOCCount) of source code in the base package, it provides a robust and efficient collection of tools and libraries which support reading, writing, and manipulating an image in over 92 major formats including important formats like DPX, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, JXL, PNG, PDF, PNM, TIFF, and WebP.
The WebP format is a recent one, dedicated to have smaller and lighter images for publishing on the web.
(It seems the software for Mac you are talking about might know about it yet, if I refer to the paragraph of their documentation that I stumbled upon : Preparing pictures for the internet, unless the documentation needs to be updated).
Hardware support:
Just know that Ubuntu doesn’t shy away from including propriety drivers ‘out of the box’. Don’t know Debian’s policy on this. Mint’s not good on Macintosh (sound). Haven’t tried Debian on a Mac.
For a long time it has been a matter of philosophy, but more importantly it is a legal matter. Some editors let you distribute their drivers, as long as you don’t use reverse ingineering on them. Others don’t, for example, some Broadcom drivers for the Wifi card need to be added afterwards, whatever the distribution (perhaps some Linux distributions communities go further, but I don’t deal with that). Anyway, there is enough documentation out there to solve almost anything.
Ubuntu used to support more than Debian (See Bug #1 by Mark Shuttleworth), I am not sure if it is still true nowadays. I believe Debian has become much easier to install and to use than it was when Ubuntu was born.
BTW, Mark Shuttleworth closed the Bug #1 report with this comment, in 2013, where he sayd it was not that much of an issue anymore.
But now a new era opens, where organisations such as The Restart Project and others come together to address the planned obsolescence, where some Linux distributions are better at helping to do that than others.
One thing which is more delicate when helping people with their plans for migration from Windows, which not everybody always think about, is the question “will my printer work under Linux?” or “will my scanner work under Linux?”.
There are docs out there too, but checking before migrating could be good.
https://www.openprinting.org/printers
https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/hardware.html.en
Pro support:
AFAIK - Ubuntu only want basic contact info so that if they see the Pro token being used on more than five computers - they have somewhere to send an email saying “Wassup bro?”
I was just pointing to the main difference : Debian does not sell paid support (whatever the number of computers owned by the users). The community lets their members use it as the see fit for their needs. The project is funded throught a non for profit organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian
On June 16, 1997, the Debian Project founded the nonprofit organization Software in the Public Interest to continue financing its development.
Also they never spied on their users, selling their search results to third party companies. See here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth
On 25 October 2013, Shuttleworth and Ubuntu received the Austrian anti-privacy Big Brother Award for sending local Ubuntu Unity Dash searches to Canonical servers by default.[26][27][28][29] In 2012, Shuttleworth had defended the anonymisation method used.[30] He later reversed the decision; this feature is not present in current Ubuntu versions.
I had been very surprised by the results of my search for a console the day I stumbled upon the strange results with that Ubuntu Edition! (I laugh now, but I was furious at that time).
PDF’s
Mainly for those PDF forms & invoices you get emailed. Draw can add fields, change their size, change fonts & so on. Can’t see that in Okular. Never tried Evince or PDF-Arranger because Draw is always there.
PDF Arranger lets you work with PDF’s the same way SAM (Split and Merge) does.
For anything more involved I use Scribus. Scribus lets you pick apart a complex PDF, edit images, change colours, save components separately - and then put it all back together again however you please.
One more thing I’m learning, thank you for that. I might give it a try some day.
Of course - you always receive those forms from someone using Windows - with many of the fonts not embedded. So they can look pretty horrible on Linux - especially corporate logos that always use some arcane font.
I meant to raise Linux font support as an issue here ages ago but never did. I’ll try to do that later today or tomorrow “Fonts - Windows vs Linux”. Something to consider for anyone transitioning from Windows 10 - dragging across piles of Word documents included in their backups.
You need to install the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package, and once it starts installing the fonts, accept the EULA (always a matter of legal things, and in some countries it is forbidden to use them for free, or else that I would not know of). It might help solving it, depending on how many new fonts not yet included are used nowadays.
Here is a list of additional free fonts which I like to add after having installed a distribution, if they are not already there:
DejaVu (fonts-dejavu)
Droid Fallback (fonts-droid-fallback)
Carlito (fonts-crossextra-carlito)
I you seek for “fonts”, in the Synaptic package manager, you will discover quite a collection.
I’ll try Bento with Calamares on Monday when I’m next in.
I will be looking forward to reading your feedback!
You need to install the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package
I know it. It installs Andale Mono, Arial Black, Arial, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, Verdana, and Webdings. Basically the fonts used by Microsoft yonks ago.
No Calibri - the old MS Office default. No Aptos - which is apparently the current default. Hence the problem with Word documents (unless they’re really, really old and default to Arial).
Which is why Word documents on Linux can look like something the cat dragged in.
Similar story with fonts-liberation - just Times, Arial and Courier.
Apparently Wine have done a FOSS replacement for Tahoma - so at least that’s something.
Which is why I want to do that post about just this one topic. Hopefully people who do DTP here will read it and contribute what they know.
I’m at home right now and using FreeBSD - but I see in OctoPkg that Carlito, from Google, is a drop in replacement for Calibri - so, again, that’s something.
But I don’t know how distros map these drop-ins to the fonts they replace - or if they do that at all. Many distros lack a Font Manager (not that I’m saying that Bento should).
As I said in my previous post, I always have the Carlito font in my systems. I don’t remember if I added it always in Bento Openbox though, I’ll have to check.
About Office applications, what do you think of OnlyOffice Desktop Editors?
Aptos is available as a free download from Microsoft - strange.
Also - Tahoma regular from Wine. And Tahoma Bold.
Carlito is already here in FreeBSD by default - and apparently some basic install of Aptos. Now I want to get a Word document in Calibri and see if it gets automatically mapped to Carlito - or if there are hoops to jump through to achieve that.
I’ve never been a fan of OnlyOffice. I think it installed by default once with Manjaro - but I then swapped it out for LibreOffice.
