FOSS Project Spotlight: Nitrux, a Linux Distribution with a Focus on AppImages and Atomic Upgrades

Nitrux is a Linux distribution with a focus on portable, application formats like AppImages. Nitrux uses KDE Plasma 5 and KDE Applications, and it also uses our in-house software suite Nomad Desktop.

What Can You Use Nitrux For?

Well, just about anything! You can surf the internet, word-process, send email, create spreadsheets, listen to music, watch movies, chat, play games, code, do photo editing, create content—whatever you want!

Nitrux's main feature is the Nomad Desktop, which aims to extend Plasma to suit new users without compromising its power and flexibility for experts. Nomad's features:

• The System Tray replaces the traditional Plasma version.
• An expanded notification center allows users to manage notifications in a friendlier manner.
• Easier access to managing networks: quick access to different network settings without having to search for them.
• Improved media controls: a less confusing way to adjust the application's volume and integrated media controls.
• Calendar and weather: displays the traditional Plasma calendar but also adds the ability to see appointments and the ability to configure location settings to display the weather.
• Custom Plasma 5 artwork: including Look and Feel, Plasma theme, Kvantum theme, icon theme, cursor themes, SDDM themes, Konsole theme and Aurorae window decoration.

Nitrux is a complete operating system that ships the essential apps and services for daily use: office applications, PDF reader, image editor, music and video players and so on. We also include non-KDE or Qt applications like Chromium and LibreOffice that together create a friendly user experience.

Available Out of the Box

Nitrux includes a selection of applications carefully chosen to perform the best when using your computer:

• Dolphin: file manager.
• Kate: advanced text editor.
• Ark: archiving tool.
• Konsole: terminal emulator.
• Chromium: web browser.
• Babe: music player.
• VLC: multimedia player.
• LibreOffice: open-source office suite.
• Showimage: image viewer.

Explore a Universe of Apps in Nitrux

The NX Software Center is a free application that provides Linux users with a modern and easy way to manage the software installed on their open-source operating systems. Its features allow you to search, install and manage AppImages. AppImages are faster to install, easier to create and safer to run. AppImages aim to work on any distribution or device, from IoT devices to servers, desktops and mobile devices.

Figure 1. The Nomad Software Center

Securing Your Desktop and Workstation

Nomad Firewall is a firewall tool for Linux that uses the Qt toolkit. You can use the wizard to create a basic firewall and then streamline it further using the dynamic rules. You can open and close ports with a few clicks, or monitor your services giving access only to a select few. Nomad Firewall is an open-source application that provides users with a graphical user interface (GUI) for the ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall)/iptables command-line interface, which lets users manage the Linux kernel's packet filtering system.

Figure 2. The Nomad Firewall

What We're Working On

znx: https://github.com/Nitrux/znx

znx allows users to perform the following:

• Make parallel deployments of bootable ISO images (Linux-based distributions are expected).
• Upgrade systems in a safe (atomic) way.
• Update images based on differential content.

For more information about how znx works, see the documentation.

Maui Project: https://maui-project.org

The Maui Project is a free and modular front-end framework for developing fast and powerful user experiences:

• Maui Kit: a set of templated controls and tools based off QQC2 and Kirigami, shared among the Maui set of applications. Maui Kit helps to build UIs quickly that follow the Maui HIG and bring ready-to-go tools for different platforms, such as Android and Linux.
• Maui Apps: applications built using the Maui Kit provide a seamless transition between mobile and desktop technology—where the line between desktop and mobile is blurred. Using the same codebase, Maui Apps provide users with one app for multiple form factors and operating systems.

For more information and to download Nitrux, visit https://nxos.org/#welcome.

—Nitrux Latinoamericana S.C.