Hi! I’ve been working on a little side project I’d like to share for anyone interested: Skip’s Rocky Desktop Spin! (formerly called “No Compromises ISO” - as in no compromises for usability or desktop ease of use.
You can download the live installable ISO here: https://skiprocky.linuxdn.org/Rocky_NoCompromise_Spin/10/
I appreciate you giving it a spin, and letting me know what you think! It’s a live iso, so you can play with it without mashing the install button.
A bit of detail:
I love Rocky + Enterprise Linux, but am in a bit of a pickle: I greatly prefer Mate (based on the old Gnome2 environnment), and really dislike Gnome3. If I want a Rocky 10 desktop, clearly something needed to be done .
I’ve (re)built Xorg/X11, the MATE desktop environment, LightDM, Compiz, and several other application packages for Rocky/RHEL 10 from Fedora sources here: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/skip77/MateDesktop-EL10/
I then developed a Live ISO that installs and customizes a friendly MATE desktop, with all the GUI bells and whistles that I hope will make it friendly even for a Linux beginner. Scripts and sources for building the ISO here: https://git.resf.org/skip/No-Compromises-ISO/src/branch/rocky10 (It’s Lorax/LiveMediaCreator + kickstarts)
A few features of the desktop at-a-glance:
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Nvidia driver pre-installed, should work out of the box (no secureboot support though)
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MATE traditional desktop with the advanced “friendly” menu. Pre-configured for ease of use
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Compiz included (not enabled by default) for fancy 3d windowing effects, wobbly windows, and all that fun stuff
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Flatpak + Software GUI with Flathub enabled by default. Vast array of apps searchable and installable out of the box (my Steam games work!)
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Firefox (with all streaming working) , LibreOffice, and some other expected productivity software to get you going
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Media should all work out of the box: VLC + Celluloid included, and all that mp4/h264/h265 video stuff should Just Work
Oh, and side note: The MATE Copr repo should work with other Enterprise Linux based distros (RHEL 10), not just Rocky. It likely would work with CentOS Stream 10 as well, though I haven’t tried that yet. If you want to use the repo or attempt a build vs. another distro in the Enterprise Linux family, I’d love to hear your results with that too!