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Nail Bender

nail_bender@social.trom.tf

More TROMjaro Thoughts

This post is a little later than I wanted it to be, because where I live just got buried under 24" +/- of snow and I haven't had internet for a couple of days. So, here we go:

Disclaimer: The day after I downloaded and installed TROMjaro, a new ISO was released. I downloaded and installed that new ISO because some changes were made and I wanted to be as current as possible for this post.

1: TROMjaro is not a beginner's distro. There are some things that need to be set up after install, and if you don't know how to go about it or where to find the setting before hand, you're going to have a bad time. CUPS for using your printer is a prime example. Like most things ARCH/ ARCH based, this is an RTFM moment.

2: TROMjaro is pretty privacy foused. Not on the level of Whonix or Tails OS (obviously), but the preinstalled software is all centered around not collecting any of your data. Even the customized Firefox is configured to block all ads, most tracking cookies, and browser fingerprinting. If that isn't enough, there is a preinstalled VPN that is beyond simple to use

This post is a little later than I wanted it to be, because where I live just got buried under 24" +/- of snow and I haven't had internet for a couple of days. So, here we go:

3: This distro is seriously snappy and light weight. None of the customization done to XFCE lags it down. Processor and RAM loads for daily usage on my machine are around 10% or less, which is actually pretty incredible considering I'm running a Ryzen 5 and 8 gigs of RAM on an HP Pavilion business class laptop with built in graphics.

4: There is NO BLOAT. "Out of the box", TROMjaro doesn't give you a bunch of useless software to clean out because you aren't going to use it. That's pretty much unheard of with most distros.

5: Speaking of software.... Between the Add/remove software app that has the AUR, Chaotic AUR, and Flatpak already enabled and set up, as well as TROM's Trade Free Software web app, it's pretty much impossible to not find the software you need for your specific use case. It's almost impossible to find any other distro that does all that work for you, though.

6: This distro is gorgeous. Seriously. Out of the box, the theming makes TROMjaro a pleasure to look at. The only things I've changed are switching to a different pre-installed wallpaper,and the Mac OS layout.

7: The Layout Switcher is one of the coolest things I've seen from a distro in a long time. I usually spend a bunch of time customizing a desktop environment to my liking after installing a distro. For the first time since I switched to Linux ( some time around Windows 8 - 8.1) , I haven't had to do that. Which is awesome.

8: "The Trade Free Apps" has got to be one of the best curated FOSS repositories I have ever seen. Currently there are 700+ pieces of software there, from video editors to matrix clients, none which collect data or have any telemetry. It's truly incredible.

I'd Like to be able to say "Now on to all the bad things about TROMjaro", but I can't. At least, not yet. I haven't had anything that I would consider a major issue. A lot of work has obviously gone in to the development of TROMjaro, and it shows. I think I've found my new permanent daily driver distro,

Linux foss TROMjaro

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Tio

in reply to Nail Bender • 11 months ago • •

I am very happy you like TROMjaro so much. It makes all of us who work on it, very happy :).

As for CUPS, honestly printing is something I never tested since I do not have a printer nor is anyone I know. But maybe I can add it to our to-do list to make the experience much better. What other things would you say are hard to setup or have to be setup after installing TROMjaro? We'd like to make the experience better, of course :)

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Nail Bender

in reply to Tio • 11 months ago •

Setting up a printer to work after a fresh install, is something I am all too familiar with. I have to do it every time. Unfortunately, I have to because I need it to print off invoices and estimates for my carpentry company.

Installing TROMjaro is pretty straight forward and enjoyable compared to any other distro. Honestly, my only complaint, with linux in general, is that NO distro auto detects my printer when I plug it in. There is a certain amount of work to be expected when setting up any distro to my specific use case. Can't really complain or consider that a huge issue from anyone.

Maybe use calmares installer, and let people select which trade free/ non trade free software they need immediately upon install? Kind of like a fresh Debian install?

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Tio

in reply to Nail Bender • 11 months ago • •

I see. I will try to look into this issue with the printers so maybe we can improve it. And yes eventually we will tweak calamares to provide such options. It is on the to-do list.

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Nail Bender

in reply to Nail Bender • 11 months ago •

Or offer "software suites" like Fedora: Video Production/ Editing, Audio Production/Editing, Photo Editing, etc.

Nail Bender

11 months ago •

Nail Bender
11 months ago •

Tromjaro Thoughts, post install

1: The desktop environment is XFCE, not Gnome. my bad. Would love to see an ISO with a pre-configured Tiling Window manager like i3/Sway, awesome, or Xmonad. I'd quickly make the switch to daily drive one of those, because honestly, I really hate writing config files.

2: The out of the box software is pretty solid, especially the customized firefox and VPN. Definitely appreciate the 2 app stores; TROM's own trade-free web app for their curated list of awesome FOSS, and XFCE's add/remove software app for everything else.

3: The pre-enabled AUR, Chaotic AUR, Flatpak, and other repositories. If you can't find the software you are looking for, trade free or not.... I'm convinced it doesn't exist.

4: This distro is seriously quick and snappy. None of the customization done, lags it down. On average today RAM usage was less than 1 gig (out of 8) and CPU load was less than 10%.

Considering I stick with Debian/ Debian based distros, for stability reasons, I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of effort put in to TROMjaro.

Linux foss trom

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Tio

in reply to Nail Bender • 11 months ago • •

Actually we will add a tilling layout to our Layout Switcher app. It will not be as good as say the ones that are specifically designed for this, since it will be on top of XFCE, but can be a great option. Especially if you can enable/disable with a click of a button.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I am very happy to read all of that! Tomorrow we should release a new ISO where we will explain some stuff about what we are trying to do with TROMjaro.

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Nail Bender

11 months ago •

Nail Bender
11 months ago •

TROMjaro

Being new to TROM.tf, I decided to check out TROMjaro. This distro is absolutely gorgeous!
I booted from a live USB just to check it out, because I've had bad experiences with Manjaro in the past, and it's pretty feature packed. Best of all, "proprietary" software isn't completely blocked because of the trade free views of TROM and nature of the distro, meaning that I can install a couple of pieces software that my life revolves around.

Admittedly, KDE is my favorite and preferred desktop environment but with the look and feel of the tweaks pre-applied to Gnome... I could probably get used to not having KDE pretty quickly.

I'll be prepping to install and making it my daily driver on my laptop for a while. Will update with further thoughts in a week or so.