Master Builder

Several hundred different Linux distributions for different use cases vie for your favor. These preconfigured systems also include some software that you find useless, or they lack important programs that you need to install manually. AryaLinux from India takes a different approach here: The operating system is developed from Linux From Scratch (LFS; i.e., from source) and targets advanced individuals who prefer to determine what is installed on their system and want to curate their own software.

Images

Although the project site now offers 2017 images, for this article, I used the 2016 images, which are still available for 32- and 64-bit architectures [1]. The hybrid images also allow you to start up from a USB stick. From 2017 on, AryaLinux will only be offered in the 64-bit variety.

The 2016.08 images come in a choice of two desktop environments: In addition to the lean Mate interface, whose ISO image weighs in at roughly 2.3GB, you can get the not-so-lean Xfce desktop (2.7GB) [2]. The developers also provide a Builder DVD for both popular hardware architectures, which is fairly small at 1.6GB but is based on the older 2016.04 version. The 2017 images are significantly smaller at 1.9GB (Mate), 1.8GB (Xfce), and 1.4GB (Builder).

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