Linux Distro Reviews: Tuxedo OS
Repeat of yesterday:
Tuxedo OS is based on Ubuntu LTS, the long-term support version of the world’s most popular Linux distro. This gives Tuxedo the benefit of one of the widest software repositories and the deepest hardware support of virtually any distro.
One common complaint with Ubuntu LTS is that the Linux kernel and software can become somewhat stale throughout the release’s two-year life cycle. This can be especially problematic for the newest hardware that older versions of the Linux kernel may not yet support. Tuxedo solves this by updating the kernel, the graphics stack, and some popular applications throughout the life of a release.
Tuxedo uses KDE Plasma for its desktop environment (DE), pulling the KDE stack directly from the KDE Neon repos. KDE Neon is the distro maintained by the KDE developers and receives updates to Plasma and KDE apps as soon as they are available. Tuxedo does a bit of additional testing but still updates the KDE stack within a couple of weeks of Neon. This extra QA helps smooth out Plasma’s rough edges.
Other than a custom color theme, which can be easily changed, Tuxedo OS makes no major changes to KDE Plasma. The distro also includes relatively few pre-installed applications beyond the basic suite of apps, leading to a relatively lean install.
Tuxedo hosts its own repos, mirroring the Ubuntu ones. As a general rule, system updates are pushed out every Monday, while security updates are pushed out as soon as they become available.
Like other popular distros based off of Ubuntu—such as Linux Mint—Tuxedo includes Flatpak and does not include Ubuntu’s snaps.