Always looking to cut corners, Mayank Sharma tries out a distro that promises to enhance his geek credentials without making him work for it.
The decade-old Calculate Linux distro is one of the few projects that still supports both 32- and 64-bit architectures. The project ships several desktop editions of Calculate, each based on different desktop environments. Besides the headline KDE release, there are spins based around Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce. All environments have been customised to sport a taskbar at the top of the desktop and a hidden dock at the bottom.
One of the major changes in the latest release is the move to compress its ISO images with the Zstandard algorithm instead of the xz algorithm, which has sped up boot times and program launches in the Live environment. You can also now install the distro on a btrfs-formatted partition using the project’s homebrewed custom installer, which is a welcome change from the mainstream distribution installers. Calculate’s installer offers a range of default options that will work for a large number of users. Experienced users will appreciate the foldable advanced menu in every step that reveals various options that enable you to customise the installation.
Packed with programs
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