14 DAY TRIAL // ExTiX 14.1 64-bit, a distribution based on the recently launched operating system from Canonical, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, has been officially released.
The developer has rebased the distribution on the newer Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), which was launched just last week, which makes this the second operating system out there that makes use of the new distro from Canonical.
The ExTiX developer makes his major releases every six months, right after a new Ubuntu gets released. This new Ubuntu is an LTS release, which means that it will benefit from five years of support, until 2019. It’s unclear what will happen with this branch of ExTiX, but it’s unlikely that it will last that long.
“ExTiX 14.1 64 bit is based on Debian/Ubuntu 14.04. The original system includes the Desktop Environment Unity (Ubuntu). After removing Unity I have installed Gnome 3.10 and Gnome Classic 3.10 (a perfect replacement for Cinnamon). The system language is English,” reads the official announcement.
This is a very common practice among the developers who adopt Ubuntu as their base, more precisely to remove Unity. It’s not a bad desktop environment, but it’s harder to customize and there is still a portion of the Linux community that still don’t likes it one bit.
ExTiX 14.1 comes with some very interesting features. For example, the ISO is actually a hybrid, which means that if you are running the operating system Live from an USB you can make changes to it and they will remain in place after the reboot.
The operating system is also capable of running straight from RAM. Unlike most other Live operating systems, if you choose the option Copy to RAM you will be able to pull the USB or the disc and ExTiX will continue to run unimpeded (you won’t be able to save things after the restart).
Also, it’s now possible to install NVIDIA's proprietary drivers in ExTiX if you want or need it, VLC 2.1.1 has been installed by default, Linux kernel 3.13.0-17-exton has been replaced with Linux kernel 3.13.0-24-exton (which is based on the official 3.13.9 kernel), and the installation program Ubiquity (the default Live installer from Ubuntu) is now working as intended in ExTiX without any more bugs.
Check the official website for more details about this release. You can download ExTiX 14.1 64-bit right now from Softpedia. Keep in mind that the developer doesn't make a 32-bit version of this distribution.