Review: rlxos 2023.11 "Silanghana"
I recently talked about openSUSE's MicroOS and I feel as though, with that experience fresh in my head, it makes sense to draw some parallels with rlxos. Both distributions offer immutable bases and both use Flatpak to supply additional software. There are a few key differences. For example, openSUSE's MicroOS offers Plasma and GNOME desktop experiences while rlxos offers Xfce. MicroOS provides graphical front-ends for package management while rlxos requires command line usage.
On the other hand, rlxos offers a lighter, faster experience when running in my test environments. I also like the super simple system installer and the clear documentation. There were a few issues with rlxos, mostly in terms of the Firefox bug which was fixed at the start of my trial. Apart from this small issue, and the print permissions error, rlxos offered a smooth, fast, light experience and I quite enjoyed it.
I'm not sure I could use it as a daily driver, or at least it wouldn't be practical. I'd need to install at least one container using Distrobox and, at that point, I might as well just run the container distribution directly as the main operating system. However, I could definitely see the benefit of running rlxos for someone who doesn't use the command line a lot or many obscure software packages. rlxos offers a light, fast, clean environment and an immutable base. It's pleasantly streamlined while still offering all of the software available in Flathub. I think, if the project adds a graphical software centre, I'd recommend it to less experienced computer users or people who want an easy, stable experience.