… desert. Yes, the most driest, most biggest sand desert in the world is one of my most beloved travel locations. You know I have a thing for moonlike landscapes. And the best thing is: Two or three days of driving and I’m there. You know Namibia is for us what Mexico or Alaska is for our American friends. 😉 But I digress …
Because this writeup ain’t about the Namib desert, not at all. But about a fairly new GNU/Linux distro, which really has the right stuff to become my favourite Linux distro … ever. I’m test driving it for now on MiniMe, and if everything goes ok I’ll install it on my main production and SL playing machine, the mighty MiniMax, in the next couple days.
Orca’s desktop, a couple minutes after installation and with only minute modifications applied. You notice already the Win7-ish look and feel of Orca’s beloved Mate desktop, which was the choice of the obviously very tasteful and clever developers.I don’t even know if Namib Linux comes with a software center, who cares about kiddy shit like that? Namib is an ArchLinux derivative so we use of course the terminal to install all our apps. BTW, Namib Linux is developed in Tokelau/New Zealand, don’t ask me what the connection is to our neighbourhood desert.Got a shock when I mentioned Arch? Well, I won’t suggest Namib Linux to total n00bs, the Arch base is a bit too bitchy and unfriendly. But our Kiwis made the best and most userfriendly distro available from it. It already starts with the super simple Calamares Installer, they’ve got from Manjaro, and ends – for now – with the very traditional Mate desktop environment, which really resembles Windows 7 more than anything.The initial update as so typical for all sorts of Linuxes. It went without any problems. We’ll see how Namib will treat us in the long run. We’re talking about Arch here, which means you get always the lastest and greatest but sometimes not entirely tested software packages. But we’re talking about Linux here, which means we can finetune the riskyness of our updates from super stable to bleeding edge. You know on which end of the spectrum you’ll find stupid Orca. 😉On Namib’s website you’ll find some nicely done explainifications for new users. One can sense how much they care about making Namib as easy (or actuallly much more easy) than the legendary (and not at all user friendly) Ubuntu.Ya ya, we know: Linux is the bestest and bah blah blah … It’s all true. But sorry, I guess even the most new n00bie knows all that stuff by heart. Afterall they’ve found their way to the Namib site, so they must know already about the advancements of Linux over WinApple.
Okay, now let’s see if Namib ticks all my boxes:
Installation went like a breeze, easy and fast. Too bad ist ended with an error message, telling me the install had failed. 😦 But after just restarting the PC almost everything went groovy. Some few little niggles I had quickly under control. But things like those keeping me from recommending Namib to new users.
Overall my time on the system was much too short to give any real review of the Namib OS. Until now it’s very nice, probably even the best Linux experience I’ve ever had. The very fast and o so nifty Arch base, coupled with the oldstyle Mate desktop; this combo won me right over!
It’s as if the Namib devs came up with this distro specifically with Orca in mind: It’s exactly my style and with my humble knowledge and experience I was able to sort out the few little problems without becoming geeky or having to read looooong long wikipedia articles. I wouldn’t understand those anyway. =^.^=
But, oy vey, almost forgot the most important qualifying test for any Linux distro on any of Orca’s computers …
\o/ YAY! \o/ There she is: Orca inworld, on Singularityviewer-alpha and in poor Intel HD graphics quality. Well, that’s MiniMe’s fault, not Namib’s. But anyway, it werkz, nailed the most important test! A thing my formerly so beloved Manjaro didn’t manage to do lately. The future looks bright I guess. Can hardly wait to install Namib Linux on my main machine. Will maybe get at it tomorrow. 🙂 Or is that too early? Don’t be a daft cow, Orca. Everybody loves Namib Gnu/Linux.
I’m replaying here not about the Linux distro (I do trust you Orcsi that this a great distro, matbe I try it someday), but to comment about deserts.
I just want to present Lençois Maranhenses, not as big, not as dry (au contraire, plenty of water in it) but sandy and plenty of dunes, one of the most beautiful places I’ve had ever been, located in northern Brazil.
“matbe I try it someday”
No, not good enough, darling. TRY IT NOW!!! Nownow!
No, jus’ kiddin’. Maybe if you’re already safe and sound and feel at home in another Linux distro, and if you like the oldfashioned Mate desktop, then I can really recommend it. In all other cases it would be irresponsible to suggest Namib for you, or anyone else. Please go with LinuxMint, it’s great.
The Lençois Maranhenses looks great. And fun! The second photo, is that a normal thing that people go there for a fun day on the beach? Is it that accessible? You know when we were in Namibia we stayed on the asphalt roads all the time. With our very old BMW I wouldn’t have gone into the desert for 5 meters without getting stuck. We did it a couple days later on quads, which was ultra fun. We found tracks of sidewinder snakes and the skeletons of a whole herd of horses. They belonged to British cavalry troops who brought them in during WW1 but had to shoot them coz they all became sick. The skeletons were still wearing their harnesses. There’s also a German ghost town near Swakopmund, that is slowly getting consumed by the sand. But you can still find lots of little household artifactcs, wallpapers, bath tubs … Spooky shit. 😮 The desert climate is so fukn dry, stuff just won’t rot away.
Hi,
Thank you for this review, but I want to give some precision. First at all the distro is not developed in new Zealand but in Canada. And the error occurred during the install was fixed in the release yesterday.
Merci beaucoup for the quick reply and a fine Arch distro, Frederic. Yes, I noticed the “install failed” bug was fixed, when I installed Namib on my good computer yesterday. Good job. But other things bug me to no end …
– still waiting for confirmation mail from your forum
– can’t use the AUR, can’t even install it. 😦 This worked on my small desktop and my netbook without any problems. So I guess it’s something wrong with my good machine, when the old shitmachines can handle it so fine.
– I’ve spent the whole day trying to get Namib OS right on my good computer … but no joy. 😦
This worked flawlessly with my older, not so good machines. Also had problems installing my Nvidia driver but my husband has solved that by now. Oh, and VLC refused to play. We got that sorted as well. Now it’s just the AUR problem. 😦
Oh I see the problem, yaourt as been removed in the last version and as been replaced by trizen. Yaourt is old and outdated. You can always use the GUI method via pamac
[orca@MiniMax ~]$ trizen singularityviewer-alpha
1 aur/singularityviewer-alpha 1.8.7.6987-1 [3+] [0.015%] [8 Feb 2018]
An exciting client for Second Life (secondlife) and OpenSim (opensimulator), which combines the look and feel of Viewer 1.23 with the latest and greatest of available technology. (alpha version)
[…] almost a day later, and after many a problem and finally some much needed help by Namib’s head honcho Frederic himself, who stumbled over my blogstory (another cool thing about Linux is the accesibility of the […]
[…] catastrophe, data losses or computer failures? Yes. it is so, indeed. It was on February 24 that I installed Namib for a test on MiniMe, my oldest and weakest desktop. And it swiped me off my feet. One or two days […]
[…] I totally forgot it. 😮 Yesterday marked my 1st anniversary on Namib GNU/Linux since the 24th February 2018 and my first installation of Namib on one of my test […]
[…] Manjaro Mate freshly installed. In fact so fresh, I haven’t even done the initial update yet, but left the little affair of 415 updates (!) entirely for hubby to amuse himself with. 🙂 He shall do so laterz tonight or so. And I really hope he’ll like it. Because Manjaro was my first and only ArchLinux distro, I used that glorious shit even until February last year. […]
welcome to my little corner of daily inspiration on subjects of fashion, architecture, art ... etc. #steampunk #dark #victorian #gothic #architecture #art #design #culture
… desert. Yes, the most driest, most biggest sand desert in the world is one of my most beloved travel locations. You know I have a thing for moonlike landscapes. And the best thing is: Two or three days of driving and I’m there. You know Namibia is for us what Mexico or Alaska is for our American friends. 😉 But I digress …
Installation went like a breeze, easy and fast. Too bad ist ended with an error message, telling me the install had failed. 😦 But after just restarting the PC almost everything went groovy. Some few little niggles I had quickly under control. But things like those keeping me from recommending Namib to new users.
Thar She Blows! 
I’m replaying here not about the Linux distro (I do trust you Orcsi that this a great distro, matbe I try it someday), but to comment about deserts.
I just want to present Lençois Maranhenses, not as big, not as dry (au contraire, plenty of water in it) but sandy and plenty of dunes, one of the most beautiful places I’ve had ever been, located in northern Brazil.
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“matbe I try it someday”
No, not good enough, darling. TRY IT NOW!!! Nownow!
No, jus’ kiddin’. Maybe if you’re already safe and sound and feel at home in another Linux distro, and if you like the oldfashioned Mate desktop, then I can really recommend it. In all other cases it would be irresponsible to suggest Namib for you, or anyone else. Please go with LinuxMint, it’s great.
The Lençois Maranhenses looks great. And fun! The second photo, is that a normal thing that people go there for a fun day on the beach? Is it that accessible? You know when we were in Namibia we stayed on the asphalt roads all the time. With our very old BMW I wouldn’t have gone into the desert for 5 meters without getting stuck. We did it a couple days later on quads, which was ultra fun. We found tracks of sidewinder snakes and the skeletons of a whole herd of horses. They belonged to British cavalry troops who brought them in during WW1 but had to shoot them coz they all became sick. The skeletons were still wearing their harnesses. There’s also a German ghost town near Swakopmund, that is slowly getting consumed by the sand. But you can still find lots of little household artifactcs, wallpapers, bath tubs … Spooky shit. 😮 The desert climate is so fukn dry, stuff just won’t rot away.
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Hi,
Thank you for this review, but I want to give some precision. First at all the distro is not developed in new Zealand but in Canada. And the error occurred during the install was fixed in the release yesterday.
Thank you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Merci beaucoup for the quick reply and a fine Arch distro, Frederic. Yes, I noticed the “install failed” bug was fixed, when I installed Namib on my good computer yesterday. Good job. But other things bug me to no end …
– still waiting for confirmation mail from your forum
– can’t use the AUR, can’t even install it. 😦 This worked on my small desktop and my netbook without any problems. So I guess it’s something wrong with my good machine, when the old shitmachines can handle it so fine.
– I’ve spent the whole day trying to get Namib OS right on my good computer … but no joy. 😦
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Hi,
For the forum can you give me your username. I will check if the user is waiting for the confirmation and send you the email.
For aur, can you give me more detail? what are you trying to install and how you proceed.
Thank you
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WOW, another ultra quick reply. 🙂
My username is Orca, my email addy is orca.flotta@gmx.de and, oui, I’m still waiting for confirmation. =^.^=
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Hi,
I send an other confirmation. Check out your main mailbox and spam.
Thank you
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I’m trying to install the Second Life viewer Singularity from the AUR:
[orca@MiniMax ~]$ yaourt singularityviewer-alpha
bash: yaourt: Kommando nicht gefunden.
[orca@MiniMax ~]$
This worked flawlessly with my older, not so good machines. Also had problems installing my Nvidia driver but my husband has solved that by now. Oh, and VLC refused to play. We got that sorted as well. Now it’s just the AUR problem. 😦
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Oh I see the problem, yaourt as been removed in the last version and as been replaced by trizen. Yaourt is old and outdated. You can always use the GUI method via pamac
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I’ve never heard of trizen, how do I use it?
[orca@MiniMax ~]$ trizen singularityviewer-alpha
1 aur/singularityviewer-alpha 1.8.7.6987-1 [3+] [0.015%] [8 Feb 2018]
An exciting client for Second Life (secondlife) and OpenSim (opensimulator), which combines the look and feel of Viewer 1.23 with the latest and greatest of available technology. (alpha version)
=>> Select packages to install
>
\o/ Hoo! It werked! \o/
Merci again, for the quick help. xoxox
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No problem.. if you have questions ask on the forums.
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[…] almost a day later, and after many a problem and finally some much needed help by Namib’s head honcho Frederic himself, who stumbled over my blogstory (another cool thing about Linux is the accesibility of the […]
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[…] First baby steps in a new distro. […]
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[…] catastrophe, data losses or computer failures? Yes. it is so, indeed. It was on February 24 that I installed Namib for a test on MiniMe, my oldest and weakest desktop. And it swiped me off my feet. One or two days […]
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[…] my one-year anniversary as a happy user on Namib GNU/Linux, is coming up in a couple days, on the 24th of this […]
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[…] I totally forgot it. 😮 Yesterday marked my 1st anniversary on Namib GNU/Linux since the 24th February 2018 and my first installation of Namib on one of my test […]
LikeLike
[…] Manjaro Mate freshly installed. In fact so fresh, I haven’t even done the initial update yet, but left the little affair of 415 updates (!) entirely for hubby to amuse himself with. 🙂 He shall do so laterz tonight or so. And I really hope he’ll like it. Because Manjaro was my first and only ArchLinux distro, I used that glorious shit even until February last year. […]
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