You might know that there are hundreds, if not thousands of Linux distributions out there. The Linux community does not have a lack of choice when it comes to distros. In fact, sometimes it becomes too much overwhelming having this many distros. Today we are going to talk about Garuda Linux, a relatively new Linux distro in the ever-growing list!
What is Garuda Linux?
Garuda Linux is an arch-based Linux distribution which, according to their community, is a Linux distro designed and optimized specially for gamers. So what makes it so special for gamers? Well, it contains various optimizations and tweaks which make it suitable for gaming and other high-performance tasks by using zram, performance CPU governor, custom memory management, and much more! It is currently a rolling release, which means that it is continuously being updated in various areas.
How to install Garuda Linux?
Garuda Linux can be downloaded as an ISO file from their official website. You can visit the official website of Garuda Linux by Clicking here. They have many editions present on their website, with different desktop environments like -
KDE Dr460nized
Xfce
GNOME
LXQT-Kwin
Wayfire
Qtile
BSPWM
i3WM
Sway
Mate
KDE Dr460nized (dragonized) is their main edition. As it is a rolling release, it is recommended to choose the desktop environment which will be most worked upon by the team. KDE Dr460nized also has 3 sub-editions:
The normal one for general use
A Gaming edition with lots of apps that would 'enhance' the gaming performance
A BlackArch edition, which is focused on Cybersecurity
After you download the ISO, you can install a wonderful program called BalenaEtcher to create a bootable USB drive. Then, you are ready to boot into your USB.
Once you boot into your live USB, you are greeted with a heavily customized version of the 'Calamares' installer, which you would use to install Garuda Linux on your PC. The exact installation procedure is the topic for another blog. After the installation is finished, you can use the 'Garuda Welcome' app to optimize your brand new Garuda Linux and to install some apps. The default package manager in Garuda is 'Octopi', but you can also install any other package manager like 'Pamac'. This distro has a very nice GUI mode which guides you every step of the way to install different apps and components in your operating system. You also get a beautiful theming with wobbly windows, which can be a little bit too much for some people.
Conclusion
Overall Garuda Linux is a very modern and good-looking Linux distro which focuses on performance. I have also noticed that it uses significantly more RAM than any standard KDE Plasma arch-based distro. The Garuda Team says that they are not in favor of 'wasting RAM', so they make use of it, which increases the RAM uses. But one biggest problem that I encountered when I installed the latest current version of Garuda was that my CPU temp got a bit higher than usual. It even began to touch the 70 degrees Celsius mark. THat is definitely a bit concerning. But we should also remember that this a a rolling distro and such bugs and anomalies are common in rolling releases. I would somewhat hesitate in currently recommending anyone to use Garuda as their daily driver, but still, it is most definitely a very fun distro to try out!
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