omnidemos

OmniDEmos is an unofficial, simple variant of Trisquel Mini. 'DE' refers to the abbreviation Desktop Environment, and the entire name to 'the mother of all demos'. It is a libre clone of the discontinued Hybryde distribution.

Concept

The concept is simple and educational; a beginner or instructor, educator, etc. can use this single ISO image to (make) discover a large variety of desktop environments. It is a live environment that can be put on common media including CD, DVD, USB, and possibly other obscure media.

In this variant are present: Unity (default D.E.), MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, and two personalisable window managers - Openbox and FVWM.

License

Under what license is Trisquel distributed?

Also read CUBIC's copyright file.

Download

MD5 - used to verify the integrity of the file, its fingerprint.

Multiple mirrors are available:

• England (HTTPS, I2P)
• Chile (HTTPS)

Questions-answers

I don't sufficiently comprehend English or Spanish. How can I change the language?

Don't worry; to do so requires solely a couple of clicks. From the default desktop - Unity -, click on the settings icon in the taskbar, then open 'Language Support' in the first line. If you aren't on the Unity desktop, search for this tool in the launch menu or open a terminal by pressing simultaneously Ctrl-Alt-T on the keyboard and then enter 'gnome-language-selector'. Click on the 'Install/Remove Languages...' button and make a selection, then apply by confirming. Finally, disconnect and reconnect.

N.B.: Some software such as Abrowser require language packages - note that Abrowser refers to them as 'locale' packages, but such packages are often named l10n, etc. -, search for them via the web interface or via the Synaptic graphical interface of Debian's package management system. If necessary, restart the session.

How do I change the desktop environment / window manager?

Disconnect from your session: see in/near the power options for desktops - click on the desktop and option like 'Quit' or 'Exit' for window managers. Once on the session manager, type in the username 'omnidemos', press Enter/Return, the password bar should go away and you should now click on the session button, top right corner. Choose a session and press Enter/Return to start it.

N.B.: As indicated, enter the user name before selecting the session, as the session manager resets the session selection when the password bar departs.

Where are GNOME and KDE Plasma?

KDE Plasma comes with Triskel - wishing you good luck in managing that giant, labyrinthine system.

GNOME is someplace else - for example in the software repositories of Trisquel, Parabola, Guix, etc. It is for now excluded from OmniDEmos for concerns about the project's political intentions, and objectively its design that is more adapted for mobile devices than desktop and laptop computers. Since all of this is libre software, you can act against this decision by installing GNOME or even making a new version of OmniDEmos, but please consider these arguments.

Where are x, y, z?

Don't hesitate to suggest additions to the community!

Is there a more general educational environment?

For certain educational needs, Trisquel offers the Sugar environment, including the highly commendable GCompris educational suite, but the rest is imperfect in its current state.

Can I install Trisquel via this variant?

No, if you want to install Trisquel with multiple desktops, that's entirely possible, but you should install Trisquel (e. g. its Mini edition) and install some desktop environments manually. In this variant, the Ubiquity installer doesn't work, as it's disabled - however, interactions related to installation don't cause major errors, e.g. 'Install Trisquel' ignores Ubiquity and switches to the default X session.

What's the update cycle?

First, there's no difference in software/packages with Trisquel, everything is stable. Since this variant is reproducible by anyone, there could be perpetual updates - that is, as long as the CUBIC tool (or any other manner to make the iso to distribute the variant) and the Trisquel project are active. For the moment, the plan is for the variant to be updated when something new occurs, including improvements, a new desktop environment or a new version of Trisquel.

Version history

• 2023-06-01. Initial release; 1.0 (amd64, approx. 2.7G - 2846556160 bytes) with Unity (default D.E.), MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, and two personalisable window managers - Openbox and FVWM.

Source / How to reproduce this

Instructions using CUBIC

NOTE: following the request of quiliro, a trial of compatibility verification between CUBIC and the GNU FSDG is available here. These recommendations are not adapted at all for this case, but - apparently - there's nothing else.

Ideally a modified version of the makeiso script should be used - however, it takes competence to create one.

Base

• CUBIC installation
• Latest Trisquel Mini ISO insertion
• Required fields fill in

CUBIC terminal

- Update

# apt update && apt upgrade

- Desktop environments installation

# apt install mate cinnamon xfce4 enlightenment fvwm unity unity-lens-*

- (Optional) Deactivate Ubiquity, this ISO is improper for a Trisquel installation - Ubiquity won't work and the 'Install Trisquel' option executes X after a few moments.

# echo '' > /usr/bin/ubiquity