SparkyLinux

Category:Articles with short descriptionCategory:Short description matches Wikidata Category:Articles lacking reliable references from March 2022Category:All articles lacking reliable references Category:Articles with short descriptionCategory:Short description matches Wikidata
SparkyLinux
SparkyLinux 6.0 "Po Tolo" with Xfce
DeveloperSparkyLinux team[1]
OS familyLinux (Unix-like)
Working stateCurrent
Source modelOpen source
Initial release5 May 2012; 13 years ago (2012-05-05)[2]
Latest release7.7[3] / 10 April 2025; 34 days ago (10 April 2025)
Available inMultilingual
Update methodAPT (front-ends available)
Package managerdpkg (front-ends available)
PlatformsIA-32, x86-64, ARM
Kernel typeMonolithic (Linux)
UserlandGNU
Default
user interface		LXQt, MATE, Xfce and KDE
LicenseMainly GPL and other free software licenses, minor additions of proprietary
Official websitesparkylinux.org

SparkyLinux is a desktop-oriented operating system based on the Debian operating system. The project offers a ready-to-use operating system with various desktops to choose from.[4] SparkyLinux is released 3-4 times per year to provide the latest versions of all applications.

History

The project was born in October 2011 as an Ubuntu remix with Enlightenment as the default desktop having the name ue17r (Ubuntu Enlightenment17 Remix). After a few months of testing, the base system was changed to Debian and renamed SparkyLinux.[5]

Features

SparkyLinux has two main "flavors": the "stable flavor", which is based on the latest Debian stable, and the “rolling flavor”, which is based on the testing (next stable) branch of Debian and uses a (semi-)rolling-release cycle. Additionally, it includes a collection of tools and scripts to help users with easy administration of the system.[6]

The default desktop environments are LXQt (former LXDE), MATE, Xfce, and KDE, but users can install other desktops via 'Sparky APTus'.

As Sparky ISO image features a few proprietary packages, the 'Sparky APTus' provides a small tool called 'Non-Free Remover' which can easily uninstall all 'contrib' and 'non-free' packages from the system.[7]

Since 2023, the project has offered storage persistence from a utility that writes USB disk images. The feature so far only works on the MinimalGUI version of SparkyLinux.[8]

Special editions

  • GameOver Edition, targeted to gamers. It features a large set of free and open-source games and some needed tools.
  • Rescue Edition, provides a live system and a large number of applications for recovering broken operating systems.
  • Multimedia for audio, video, and HTML pages editing.
  • MinimalCLI and MinimalGUI.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "SparkyLinux Team". Retrieved 20 August 2021.
  2. ↑ "SparkyLinux 1.0 wersja finalna". Linuxiarze.pl. 5 May 2012. Retrieved 20 August 2021.
  3. ↑ "Sparky 7.7".
  4. ↑ "SparkyLinux Wiki". Sparky Wiki.
  5. ↑ pavroo (13 October 2021). "ue17r". ArchiveOS. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
  6. 1 2 pavroo (18 December 2024). "About". SparkyLinux. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
  7. ↑ pavroo (20 September 2023). "Sparky APTus". SparkyLinux. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
  8. ↑ pavroo (20 January 2023). "Sparky 2023.01 + Persistence". SparkyLinux. Retrieved 2023-02-05.

Further reading

Category:Articles lacking in-text citations from December 2016Category:All articles lacking in-text citations
Category:Debian-based distributions Category:Linux distributions Category:LiveDistro Category:Live USB Category:LXQt Category:Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Category:X86-64 Linux distributions Category:Rolling release Linux distributions
Category:All articles lacking in-text citations Category:All articles lacking reliable references Category:Articles lacking in-text citations from December 2016 Category:Articles lacking reliable references from March 2022 Category:Articles with short description Category:Commons category link is on Wikidata Category:Debian-based distributions Category:LXQt Category:Linux distributions Category:LiveDistro Category:Live USB Category:Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Category:Rolling release Linux distributions Category:Short description matches Wikidata Category:X86-64 Linux distributions