REVIEWS Linux distribution
Nate Drake discovers how a distro can be both fast and clunky at the same time when booting Austrumi.
Most Linux users are aware of Slackware; not only is it currently the oldest actively maintained Linux distribution, but it’s also designed for simplicity and interoperability. Slackware’s lack of graphical installer and pre-installed desktop environment only make it suitable for advanced users, hence the number of distros that are based on the operating system.
Austrumi has sought to square this circle since 2009, when the first stable version was released. This Latvia-based distro’s main selling point is that it’s capable of booting from a CD/ISO, then loading the entire OS and associated applications into RAM, enabling users to remove the boot medium.
In theory, this has many advantages for privacy, given that once the device reboots, any data stored in virtual memory soon dissipates.
We decided to download the minimal ISO from Austrumi’s main site, which is where we hit our first hurdle. The Download link on the website seems to point to a non-existent FTP server. Having tried this out in both Firefox and FileZilla, we found Distrowatch had a link to the main folder (https://ftp.linux.edu.lv/austrumi/), which we used to download the latest version of Austrumi (4.9.3).
Upon first boot, users are presented with four options. The first is to boot the OS into RAM then eject the boot medium. The second option is to retain the boot medium, which is recommended for machines with 1GB of RAM or less. The third option involves logging in as the root user (also ejecting the boot medium), and the fourth is for text mode.
Upon first log in, we hit another snag in that while Austrumi supports 15 languages, the default is the native tongue of the developers: Latvian. We enlisted the help of a Latvian friend to discover you can fix this, first by hovering over the gold icon at the top-left, then choosing Istatiejumi (Settings) from the top panel that appears. From here you can choose Volūdys (a word we assume to be ‘languages’) to switch languages.
