14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the Debian-based SparkyLinux GNU/Linux operating system announced over the weekend the release of the SparkyLinux 5.3 "Nibiru" Rolling ISO snapshot.
SparkyLinux currently comes in two flavors, Stable and Rolling, and while the former is based on the most recent stable release of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system, the latter is usually using the software repositories of Debian Testing. In this case, SparkyLinux 5.3 is based on the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" OS.
The SparkyLinux 5 Rolling series hasn't been updated since last December, and the new release brings a recent kernel from the Linux 4.15 series, namely version 4.15.4, the latest stable Calamares 3.1.12 graphical installer, support for the Btrfs and XFS filesystems, and all the latest updates from the Debian Buster repos as of March 7, 2018.
"There are new live/install iso images of SparkyLinux 5.3 "Nibiru" available to download. Sparky 5 follows rolling release model and is based on Debian testing "Buster," reads the release announcement. "Sparky 5.3 provides fully featured operating system with lightweight desktops: LXQt, MATE and Xfce."
BleachBit now available in SparkyLinux by default
Another interesting change implemented in the SparkyLinux 5.3 release is the inclusion of the BleachBit open-source system cleaning utility that lets users delete old files and configs from their installations, keeping it clean and light. In addition, the devs purged older configuration files from the installation images.
Other than that, this release adds missing language package installer with support for the GNOME, KDE, and Qt packages, deprecates the GDebi Debian package installer forcing users to install local DEB packages with the "APTus -> Install -> Install package" feature, and reconfigures the MinimalCLI edition to use sudo by default.
There are many minor bug fixes and improvements as well, and you can download SparkyLinux 5.3 "Nibiru" right now through our web portal. This release is available as in Xfce, LXQt, MATE, MinimalGUI (with the OpenBox window manager), MinimalCLI (text mode) flavors, supporting both 64-bit and 32-bit systems.