Rhino Linux is a new GNU/Linux distribution that’s based on Ubuntu, but which handles some key things differently from Canonical’s operating system. Unlike Ubuntu, Rhino is a rolling release operating system, which means that updates are delivered frequently, and whenever they’re available rather than saving everything up for a major OS update that comes only a few times per year (if that).

The operating system also has a custom Xfce-based desktop environment called the Unicorn Desktop. And it handles package management a little differently. Rhino released an initial beta in April, and now the operating system is out of beta and available for download. In addition to builds for PCs with Intel and AMD processors, there are versions of the operating system for generic ARM64 devices, Raspberry Pi hardware, and Pine64 devices including the PineTab, PineTab 2, and PinePhone and PinePhone Pro.

The PinePhone and PineTab versions are among the first mobile Linux distributions to feature and Xfce-based desktop environment. It’s not the first, but it may be one of the most functional.

Developer oklopfer says that the PinePhone builds of Rhino Linux are based on Ubuntu Touch 20.04, but features modified versions of the Xfce desktop environment, system keyboard, and patches to add support for things like automatic screen rotation. The current builds use the x11 compositor, but the plan is to move to Wayland after Xfce 4.20 is released, which will probably happen sometime in 2024.

PineTab builds, meanwhile, use a Linux kernel developed by the Mobian team and supports aotu-rotation, USB networking, audio, and other basic features.

As for the operating system more generally, it’s a pretty nice looking distro, with plenty of customization options and a “meta-package manager” called rhino-pkg that “combines apt, pacstall, flatpak, and snap” into a single utility that you can use to install and update software packages using the method of your choosing.

Overall it looks like Rhino Linux could be a nice solution for folks who prefer bleeding-edge software updates rather than a focus on long-term stability.

via It’s FOSS

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  1. i tried this a week or so ago… it’s very interesting and peppy. with the pinephone keyboard it was a real enjoyable experience. that said… i know i was receieving texts and calls but for the life of me couldn’t figure them out. I noticed it used some hooks from sxmo… but again i was lost.

    Reply

  2. pine not refresh blog
    anybody know what happened with PineDio ?

    pine tab still have blob in system? (wifi or motherboard)?

    Reply

  3. Typing password looks awkward like praying mantis. Why cant use vocal passwords as option? Good thing is analyzing the vocal sound so that only the specific user with their vocal cords and the utterance combination — including clicks, from African languages, tones for tonal language.

    Reply