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Review: Argent Linux 1.5.3
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
Argent Linux is a Gentoo-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and designed for workstations and servers. The distribution favours the epkg package manager, a wrapper over Gentoo's Portage, specially designed for working with precompiled binaries. Argent Linux maintains a semi-rolling release model, with a stable branch and a development (testing) branch.
I downloaded the project's KDE edition which features the Plasma desktop. This edition is 4.0GB in size. There is a separate Core edition which does not include a desktop environment which is 2.6GB in size.
Argent's live medium boots to the Plasma desktop and launches a welcome window. The welcome window uses Argent's theme (which is gold on black), but identifies the operating system as being Gentoo. The welcome window gives us a quick introduction to Plasma and offers to launch the Discover software centre.
The Plasma desktop is arranged with a panel placed across the bottom of the display. The panel holds the application menu, task switcher, and a system tray. The application menu uses more transparency than I'd like and is arranged in a fairly standard two-pane layout. Most of the icons on the panel are dark yellow and flat, making them seem like background images and the consistent colour makes them indistinct. Just two icons stand out on the panel, the ones for the Discover and Dolphin applications, both of which are blue.
On desktop we find two icons, one is labeled "Ask for help" and the other is called "Install Argent". The "Ask for help" icon launches Firefox and connects us with an IRC channel for chatting and getting help.