NimbleX is a small Slackware-based

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

optimized to run from a CD,

USB drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since first ...

or a network environment. NimbleX has been praised for how fast it boots, as well as for its small disk footprint, which is considered surprising for a distribution using

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...

. NimbleX was also remarked for its web site that allows users to generate custom bootable images using just a web browser. It was also covered in mainstream

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

press as the first Linux distribution put together by a Romanian.NimbleX, an operating system made by a Romanian
Expres, August 28, 2007

Features

NimbleX is reported to boot fast; an important factor in user experience when running from optical media or

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

drives. A review of the 2007 NimbleX edition noted: "Expect it to boot in less than half the time that a live CD from Fedora, Ubuntu, or Knoppix takes." A more recent review of the 2008 edition also noted NimbleX's speed: "It's easily one of the fastest bootups I've seen in a while. I even tried to hinder or cripple it's boot time, and even on a dog slow pendrive or an old as dirt test machine, it still booted amazingly fast. The desktop and applications are also very fast." NimbleX is also a very compact distribution. A review of the 2007 edition wondered "how they managed to include KDE, not to mention the other applications",NimbleX 2007 - As the Name Implies...
/ref> having included in the size of only 200 MB a window-based graphical user interface (a slimmed down

to fit), the Firefox web browser, the office documents editor KOffice, a PDF reader, a media player that can play almost all the file formats without the need to install a codec, the photo editing software

GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized task ...

, anti-virus and

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

support integrated to name a few applications included.the main things regarding the 200MB NimbleX
/ref> As of 2008, the installation process of major Linux distributions can be customized by creating custom installation disks, usually called spins, but creating a spin requires a certain amount of expertise, and creating a spin that can run from the installation media requires further customization. NimbleX makes this process user-friendly by providing a web interface for the process,Bruce Byfield (August 30, 2007
Custom NimbleX lives up to its name with do-it-yourself install images

Linux.com Linux.com is a website owned by the Linux Foundation. The goal of the site is to provide information about the developments and changes in Linux and related products. Linux.com offers free Linux tutorials, news and blogs, discussion forums and ...

Steven Lake (July 28, 2008
Review: NimbleX 2008

DistroWatch DistroWatch is a website which provides news, distribution pages hit rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open source Unix-like operating systems. It now contains information on ...

Weekly, Issue 263 which is similar to that of some embedded Linux distributions, e.g.

FreeWRT OpenWrt (from ''open wireless router'') is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All ...

. These features made the distribution popular early on: "To judge from its forums, NimbleX has attracted a surprisingly large number of users for such a relatively unknown distribution."

Components

NimbleX uses a 2.6 kernel. The default

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

, but for slower computers the default desktop environment can be exchanged for one with lower resource usage like Fluxbox or Xfce. Typical office, web browsing and messaging components are included, but NimbleX hardly offers any graphical administration tools — most administration tasks, like adding a new user, have to be performed from the command line. This tradeoff allows NimbleX to have a small installation footprint — a typical installation is under 400 megabytes. Additional applications can be installed using the graphical installer Gslapt (or slapt-get from the command line), which brings automatic resolution of dependencies to Slackware packages. A text-mode hard driver installer is available (nxinst), but this was considered beta quality in the 2008 edition. The 2008 edition comes in three standard install images: a 200MB and two smaller even ones at 100 and 69MB. The installers do not allow customizations of the packets during installation however. NimbleX 2008 uses KDE 3.5.9,now NimbleX 2010 beta version is also present on their site which is based on kde 4 and it support most of new hardware and the user can also enable

compiz fusion Compiz () is a compositing window manager for the X Window System, using 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. Effects, such as a minimization animation or a cube workspace, are implemented as lo ...

via a link on the desktop, but OpenOffice.org is not included; instead, KOffice is provided for an office suite.Bruce Byfield (August 18, 2008
NimbleX 2008 is speedy but flawed

NimbleX has included in the 200 MB package some very useful applications like Firefox web browser, KOffice, PDF reader, Kopete instant messenger, KlamAV anti-virus,

photo editor, Bluetooth support, remote connection to other PC. Other important software that are supported in a bigger NimbleX package are OpenOffice.org,

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

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Windows applications emulator, and many other applications are compiled by the community to be included in this distribution.

Criticism

NimbleX 2008 was criticized as "irresponsible" for lacking some common security features out of the box. Even though the

ClamAV Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) is a free software, cross-platform antimalware toolkit able to detect many types of malware, including viruses. It was developed for Unix and has third party versions available for AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Linux, macOS, OpenVMS, ...

anti-virus and the Guarddog firewall are installed by default, no (non-root) user account is created during the installation, no root password is required to log on to the desktop, and the default root password is displayed on NimbleX's web site. NimbleX 2010 also has some fixed applications which cannot be removed at all. Another problem is that some NimbleX packages are created by repackaging Slackware packages. Since NimbleX installs fewer libraries, this sometimes results in uninstallable or unusable packages.

References

External links

NimbleX websiteCreate your own custom Nimblex ISO
*
NimbleX archive and downloads
Reviews
Linux Loop about NimbleX 2008

Tuxmachines.org about NimbleX 2007
{{linux-distro Slackware Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Live USB Linux distributions