NimbleX is a small

Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System (SLS), Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distr ...

-based

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

optimized to run from a CD, USB drive 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 community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

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 graphi ...

. NimbleX was also remarked for its website that allows users to generate custom bootable images by using a web browser. It was also covered in mainstream Romanian 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 known for its fast boot up which is an important factor in user experience when running from optical media or

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

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 its 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 Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

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 A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

, the photo editing software

GIMP Gimp or GIMP may refer to: Clothing * Bondage suit, also called a gimp suit, a type of suit used in BDSM * Bondage mask, also called a gimp mask, often worn in conjunction with a gimp suit Embroidery and crafts * Gimp (thread), an ornamental tr ...

, 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 li ...

support integrated to name a few applications included. 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.comSteven Lake (July 28, 2008
Review: NimbleX 2008
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 263 which is similar to that of some embedded Linux distributions, e.g. FreeWRT. 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 is

, but for slower computers the default desktop environment can be exchanged for one with lower resource usage like

Fluxbox Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the d ...

Xfce Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...

. 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

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 via a link on the desktop, but

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed) and Collabora Online, with Apache OpenOffice being considered mostly d ...

is not included; instead, KOffice is provided for an office suite.Bruce Byfield (August 18, 2008
NimbleX 2008 is speedy but flawed
Linux.com 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

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, Python,

Samba Samba () is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in the Afro-Brazilians, Afro Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th century and early 20th century, It is a name or ...

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

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 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