Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

Romashka · 2006-03-08 13:17:52

Today I was reading DistroWatch and saw info about Rubix.
This distro is based on Slackware and Arch Linux.
What do you think about this?

Bralkein · 2006-03-08 14:24:14

Looks kind of interesting. Apparently it is the creation of some guy who likes Slackware and Arch, but thinks Slackware is not modern enough and Arch is too bleeding-edge and unstable. It also seems to focus quite heavily on security. It seems to fill quite a useful role; I think it's adopted the Arch Linux init scripts style, plus it uses pacman, but apart from that I think it probably leans more toward the Slackware style way of doing things (not that there's even a great difference there).

I have a server somewhere that I need to upgrade from SUSE, so maybe I'll give this a go - I can't use Arch on that machine because it's only a i586, so I've actually been looking for a distro like this.

T-Dawg · 2006-03-08 16:01:12

and they have a community repo too:

All packages go through Rubix to insure package quality and adherance to Rubix standards. To submit your package, please email your PKGBUILDs to me, joshua at rubix-os dot org.

I'd hate to be that guy...

Dusty · 2006-03-08 16:27:21

Lol, that's the way arch started before Judd realized he'd accidentally created sometihng more than just a few people would be interested in.... then he set up an anonymous ftp server for people to add PKGBUILDs to, but it got to be too much work for Sarah31 to remove the porn and warez. Then Jason came up with this idea that some people could be trusted, and they derived the trusted user repositories. Finally somebody said "AUR" is a cool acronym, we should find something cool to put to those letters.

</brief-history-of-arch-packaging>

I've had an interest Rubix, but haven't had a reason to try it yet. It looks pretty cool. More Arch-based systems is a good thing, it helps set us off as an independent strain of distro, IMHO. People will say "its an arch derivative" instead of trying to describe Arch as being derived from slack or Debian, which a lot of people make the mistake of believing. There's the RPM distros, the debian derivatives, the slack-based distros and the arch/pacman based distros. Cool!

Dusty

arooaroo · 2006-03-08 16:46:53

And it's compiled for i486. That makes it useful for those with old hardware.

ozar · 2006-03-08 19:42:38

I've tried it a few times in the past and it's not bad at all, especially if you like Slackware and Pacman. There still seems to be an overall shortage of packages, but the number is growing.

Here's an older thread about Rubix:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=12092

Anonymo · 2006-03-10 02:12:39

me am using it

it's a great distro. It autodetected my xorg.conf and it has all the packages slackware has, plus more. Also can compile programs on it like slackware, and joshua is going to modify checkinstall for rubix.

Also Joshua is great and is always willing to help out.

cactus · 2006-03-10 02:17:45

hmm. I might have to give it a try in one of my many VM's. heh

Anonymo · 2006-03-10 04:54:57

cactus wrote:

hmm. I might have to give it a try in one of my many VM's. heh

You should try it out with normal install. It is really speedy, perhaps not as much as arch because of i686, maybe, but it is slackware speed and it hasn't crash at all.

I don't mean to say arch is bad. Just the bleeding edge is too much for me. I like slowness I guess.

cactus · 2006-03-10 05:05:54

I tried it.
I really liked the install. Very simple and straightforward.

I didn't like fact that the rubix installer installs only one package at a time (and pulls in the deps of course), so the install is rather slow.

I also didn't like the repo structure. Seems cumbersome.

bonuses:
e17 installed easy, and just worked.
packages available are pretty reasonable
I really like the modifications rubix has made to rc.conf and some of the inits
There is some type of community repository
The distro seems to have a clear focus, and I like many of the security aspects.

bummers:
extra rc<int>.d directories
No gdm. boo-hiss.
No gnome (I get it. this is slackware. boo-hiss).
My fonts looked ugly. This one is such a huge deal for me, that I consider it a showstopper. Might be the fact that I installed it in vmware, but most distros have little issue with this. <caveat. I think arch fonts suck too. I have never had good looking fonts in arch...which is why I have only really used it as a server.>
Did I mention I didn't like the repo structure? It made the simple act of updating pacman repos (pacman -Sy) slow and painful.

Anonymo · 2006-03-10 15:17:13

there is a guide in archwiki to improve fonts. add the win32 fonts. it worked for me on everything but kdm. i am still working on that one

cactus · 2006-03-10 16:12:41

I have tried numerous permutations and gyrations. Been there, done that. Still no font love.
*shrug*

I do not have hours upon end to spend tweaking something that should, in my opinion, just work.
Who knows.. maybe something with my hardware..
I have decided that it is just not worth the effort at this point. Every couple of months, I try it again. maybe next month something will change.

elb · 2006-03-17 10:03:43

To improve fonts rendering try this :

# cd /etc/fonts/conf.d
# ln -s autohint.conf 01-autohint.conf

Arch Linux

#1 2006-03-08 13:17:52

Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#2 2006-03-08 14:24:14

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#3 2006-03-08 16:01:12

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#4 2006-03-08 16:27:21

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#5 2006-03-08 16:46:53

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#6 2006-03-08 19:42:38

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#7 2006-03-10 02:12:39

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#8 2006-03-10 02:17:45

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#9 2006-03-10 04:54:57

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#10 2006-03-10 05:05:54

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#11 2006-03-10 15:17:13

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#12 2006-03-10 16:12:41

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

#13 2006-03-17 10:03:43

Re: Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

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