Barry Kauler, founder of the Puppy Linux project, has published an experimental EasyOS 3.2 distribution that attempts to combine Puppy Linux technologies with containerized isolation to run system components. Each application, as well as the desktop itself, can be run in separate containers, which are isolated using Easy Containers' own mechanism. The distribution kit is managed through a set of graphical configurators developed by the project. The size of the boot image is 580MB.
Other features of the distribution include work by default with root rights with reset of privileges at the start of each application, since EasyOS is positioned as a Live-system of one user (optionally it is possible to work under the unprivileged user 'spot'). The distribution is installed in a separate subdirectory (the system is located in /releases/easy-3.2, user data is stored in the /home directory, and additional containers with applications in the /containers directory) and can coexist with other data on the drive. It is possible to encrypt individual subdirectories (for example, /home) and install meta packages in SFS format, which are Squashfs mounts that combine several regular packages.
After installation, the system is updated in atomic mode (the new version is copied to another directory and the active directory with the system is switched) and supports rollback of changes in case of problems after the update. There is a run from RAM mode in which the system is copied into memory at boot and runs without accessing disks.
The desktop is based on the JWM window manager and the ROX file manager. The basic package includes applications such as SeaMonkey (the Internet menu also has a button for quick installation of Firefox), LibreOffice, Scribus, Inkscape, GIMP, mtPaint, Dia, Gpicview, Geany text editor, Fagaros password manager, HomeBank personal finance management system, DidiWiki personal wiki, Osmo organizer, Planner project manager, Notecase, Pigin, Audacious music player, Celluloid, VLC and MPV media players, LiVES video editor, OBS Studio streaming system. For easy file sharing and printer sharing, a native EasyShare application is offered.
The new release offers significant structural changes, for example, each application now runs under a separate non-privileged user, a new /files root directory has been added, an OpenEmbedded (OE)-based environment is used to rebuild packages, and the audio subsystem has been moved from ALSA to Pulseaudio. Added new video drivers. Includes LiVES video editor, VLC media player, OBS Studio streaming system, and Scribus publishing suite. The 'devx' meta package includes the Mercurial version control system and the Nemiver debugger.
Source: opennet.ru