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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="bg-site-400">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link href="dist/output.css" rel="stylesheet">
<title>Rhino Linux | News</title>
<link rel="icon" type="image/svg+xml" sizes="any" href="img/logo.svg">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="img/logo.ico">
<script src="js/navbar.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="dropdown">
<div class="container">
<div class="exit">
<a onclick="ddhide()" style="color:#fefefe">x</a>
</div>
<div class="content">
<p><a onclick="ddhide()" class="text-off-white" href="index.html">Home</a></p>
<p><a onclick="ddhide()" class="text-off-white" href="download.html">Download</a></p>
<p><a onclick="ddhide()" class="text-off-white" href="news.html">News</a></p>
<p><a onclick="ddhide()" class="text-off-white" href="tracker.html">Tracker</a></p>
<p><a onclick="ddhide()" class="text-off-white" href="https://wiki.rhinolinux.org">Wiki</a></p>
<p><a onclick="ddhide()" target="_blank" class="text-off-white" href="https://pacstall.dev/packages">Packages</a></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="extended h-auto bg-[url('img/blobs.png')] bg-no-repeat bg-center-x bg-center-y bg-cover">
<div class="overlay h-auto bg-overlay text-center">
<div class="hidden lg:block">
<p class="text-center text-off-white pt-4">
<a href="index.html" class="text-off-white px-4">Home</a>
<a href="download.html" class="text-off-white px-4">Download</a>
<a href="news.html" class="text-off-white px-4">News</a>
<a href="tracker.html" class="text-off-white px-4">Tracker</a>
<a href="https://wiki.rhinolinux.org" class="text-off-white px-4">Wiki</a>
<a href="https://pacstall.dev" target="_blank" class="text-off-white px-4">Packages</a>
</p>
</div>
<div class="block lg:hidden">
<h1 class="text-right text-off-white text-3xl pr-2" onclick="ddshow()">
☰
</h1>
</div>
<h1 class="text-off-white pt-[2em] text-3xl drop-shadow-header-drop">
News Feed
</h1>
<h2 class="text-off-white text-2xl font-light mt-2 drop-shadow-header-drop">
Find news relating to Rhino Linux & its development
</h2>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="container w-[95vw] lg:w-[60vw] mt-4 rounded-[0.65em] p-4 m-auto shadow-2xl bg-site-300">
<h1 class="text-center text-off-white text-3xl">
Rhino Linux 2023.1, how we made the distro.
</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Rhino Linux has now officially moved out of Beta! We have released Rhino Linux 2023.1 on x86_64, ARM, Pine64 and Raspberry Pi devices.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Quite a lot has changed since our first beta release back in April 2023, and so instead of a generic changelog, I want to do something a little different and discuss what actually went into the making of the operating system.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
You can download Rhino Linux 2023.1 <a class="text-rhino-purple" href="download.html">here</a>. <br>
Contact us <a class="text-rhino-purple" href="contact.html">here</a>. <br>
Or maybe donate to us <a class="text-rhino-purple" href="https://ko-fi.com/rhinolinux">here</a>.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">To update to Rhino Linux 2023.1 from a previous release run: <br><br><code class="text-off-white bg-site-200 p-1 border-rhino-purple border-2 rounded-[0.65em]">rpk update -y</code> as well as <code class="text-off-white bg-site-200 p-1 border-rhino-purple border-2 rounded-[0.65em]">pacstall -PI rhino-core</code><br><br> If you are on a Pine64 platform, run <code class="text-off-white bg-site-200 p-1 border-rhino-purple border-2 rounded-[0.65em]">pacstall -PI rhino-pine-core</code> instead.
</p>
<h1 class="text-center text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl">The concept</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
The concept of the Operating System came from my (AJ) previous project. Rolling Rhino Remix was a quick little hobby project I slapped together with little to no care for a bit of fun, however people started using it. This became unmaintainable in the long run and so in October 2022 I came up with a new vision for how I wanted my desktop operating system to go.
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">Branding</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Hello all, Oren here, also known as oklopfer. My history with the Rhino Linux team
actually starts with our logo. For a bit now, I had been using Ubuntu tracking the
<code>devel</code> branch, when I had stumbled upon an article talking about Rhino
Linux. Immediately intrigued, I joined the Discord server. My personal hobbies include
graphic design and development projects, so I decided to take a shot at a logo that
demonstrated Rhino Linux, the successor to Rolling Rhino Remix. Sure enough, I was
able to produce the logo you now see across the website and distribution! I then
ended up joining the team as a “designer.”
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">Pacstall</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Hi, Elsie here. I'm in charge of Pacstall, which is an AUR-like package manager for Ubuntu. Rhino Linux chose to use Pacstall because it's a rolling distro meaning it gets updates really quickly, which pairs nicely with Pacstall's ability to also package and distribute fast and up to date updates for packages! Rhino Linux exclusively uses Pacstall for shipping most of its customizations and default applications.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Our repository is based sort of like nixpkgs is: a community repo where anybody with a GitHub account can contribute to any package regardless of maintainer. This style of repository means that sneaking blatant malware into the repo is a lot harder because of the team of reviewers that makes sure every incoming PR is up to our standards.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Oren here, hello there. A fundamental piece of holding the distribution
together and allowing us to address user issues as quickly as possible is how we ship
all of our packages. Ideally, all of our packages are held on GitHub. One of Pacstall’s
greatest features is the usage of git packages, which allow us to build
installable .deb files based on our GitHub packages, allowing updates
to operate not just by version/release, but by commit. Similarly, .deb
files not in Ubuntu repositories can quickly be pulled in by Pacstall. Combining
everything together, we have core packages, which serve as
meta-packages that tell a system to install all of its dependencies, giving a sound way
to provide rapid updates to systems.
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">
The builder
</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Hey everyone, cat-master21 here. Rhino Linux's image building system uses a tool called LiveBuild created by Debian with some shell scripts for automation which we utilise from VanillaOS, which had forked it from elsewhere.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Oren here again, after being brought on as a designer, I noticed Cat-master21 was having issues generating alpha disk images. Another thing to know about me is that I am the current maintainer of Ubuntu Touch on Pine64, so I came into the conversation with similar background knowledge. I was
able to join cat-master21 in fixing the ISO, at which point I was brought on as a full
developer.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
This is where the fun really starts. My next steps were to make the iso have
both an AMD64/x86_64 variant + an ARM64 variant; I knew that if I were to make
embedded images work, I would first have to start with getting base ARM64 images
to work. Luckily, modern MacBooks and their new Apple Silicon chips provide a
perfect place to test these images out. Once that was cracked, I moved onto the platform
I am most familiar with, Pine64. This is where the builder gets quite complicated. As
cat-master21 mentioned, the ISO builds using Debian’s live-build utility, but for our
embedded systems we have to deploy the images using another common Debian
building utility, Debos. It was at this
point that I split the process into two, using both utilities for embedded images:
live-build creates a base tarball, and Debos then deploys that tarball to a properly
configured image, tailored to each device specifically. This same process could then be
used for Raspberry Pi images, with its own modifications to the filesystem it deploys.
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">
The installer
</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Oren here again to talk about the installer. As discussed in the builder section,
the embedded images are pre-deployed, so an installer is not needed for them. As for
the ISOs, we currently use a multi-step installation process, with both a pre-install and
post-install application. On an ISO file’s first boot, the user will be greeted right away
to a live environment of Rhino Linux, so users can play around with the Unicorn
environment and some of our utilities to see if this is the distro for them.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
To proceed with installation, users can select the “Install Rhino Linux” icon
from the desktop, which takes users to a custom themed Calamares installer. After the
user goes through the Calamares installation process, they are invited to reboot,
where they will have a fully working and installed environment. On all images, both
embedded and full desktop ones, when the user first logs in, they will be greeted to
our Setup Wizard utility. This utility allows users to select light or dark theme, choose
which package managers they would like on their system, and optionally install some
other helpful utilities. After the wizard has completed, users are invited to reboot one more time, whereupon they will have their complete and ready-to-go Rhino Linux
installation.
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">
Package management
</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Elsie here, I'm also the developer for rhino-pkg (rpk), which is a meta-package manager that combines apt, pacstall, flatpak, and snap into a nice little UI that can be used to install, remove, search, and upgrade all package managers at once. This was also my first time dabbling with i18n, and since it's not a large program, we have translated it into (as of the 6th of August, 2023) 14 different languages along with English, so that hopefully every user can understand what it's doing in their native language.
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">
The Unicorn Desktop
</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
AJ here. I'm the founder of Rhino Linux, and the current Desktop Lead. The Unicorn Desktop experience that we have crafted came from other Linux desktop environments.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
The Unicorn Desktop includes the customised desktop environment you are greeted with. It comprises of a handful of free software components which we have either created ourselves or have modified in some way. The look and feel of Unicorn was inspired namely by GNOME and, the now dormant Cutefish. We wanted to keep using XFCE as our base, due to it's lightweight and customisable nature, however we wanted to give it a fresh coat of paint and users a more modern way of interacting with their operating system.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Another part of the Unicorn Desktop includes our graphical applications stack. Anything we've created to help aid the user experience of Rhino Linux falls onto the desktop team. Some of these applications are designed to make the user experience more usable in general, such as the "Setup Wizard" created by Wizard28 or the "Your System" application by Axtloss. RhinoDrop was created to be an open source alternative to airdrop, natively shipped on Rhino Linux. Currently it only has a web-user interface, however plans are in the works for a GTK4 port.
</p>
<h1 class="text-off-white mt-4 text-3xl text-center">Thank you.</h1>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
I want to thank everyone who has supported our distribution, either by joining our community, utilising it, spreading our message or donating to us on Kofi. Your support makes the distribution possible.
</p>
<p class="text-off-white mt-4">
Many thanks <b>The Rhino Linux team</b>: <br>
• AJStrong - Desktop Lead & Founder <br>
• Oren Klopfer - Systems Lead & Designer <br>
• Elsie - Pacstall & rhino-pkg developer <br>
• Axtloss - "Your System" developer <br>
• Cat-master21 - Build system & Installer maintainer <br>
• Wizard28 - "Setup Wizard" Developer <br><br>
A special thanks to: <br>
• <a href="https://github.com/hwittenborn" class="text-rhino-purple">Hunter Wittenborn</a> for hosting RhinoDrop & Downloads server.
</p>
</div>
<!-- Footer -->
<hr class="w-[60vw] h-1 mx-auto my-4 bg-site-300 border-0 rounded">
<p class="mb-4 text-center text-off-white text-1xl">
<a href="https://github.com/rhino-linux" class="text-rhino-purple">Source Code</a> | <a href="https://rhinolinux.org/contact.html" class="text-rhino-purple">Contact & Social</a> |<a href="https://ko-fi.com/rhinolinux" class="text-rhino-purple"> Donate</a> | <a href="https://wiki.rhinolinux.org/dev/brand" class="text-rhino-purple"> Branding</a> | <a href="https://rhinolinux.org/unicorn.html" class="text-rhino-purple">Unicorn</a> | <a href="https://rhinolinux.org/tracker.html" class="text-rhino-purple">Bug tracker</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>