Ruse Linux For Linux

Ruse Linux is an elegant, modern, small and open source Linux-based operating system that features the lightweight Razor-qt desktop environment. It is based on the Slacko edition of Puppy Linux, which in turn is based on Slackware Linux.

The distribution is available for download as a Live CD ISO image of approximately 300MB in size, designed to support only 32-bit applications. It is compatible with 64-bit (x86_64) and 32-bit (i386) hardware platforms and must be deployed to either a USB flash drive or CD disc in order to boot it from the BIOS of a computer.

Being based on Puppy Linux, the operating system’s Live CD image features a minimal boot prompt where the user can start the live environment by pressing the Enter key on his or her keyboard. You can also press the F2 or F3 keys to access basic and advance help respectively.

The desktop environment of Ruse Linux is minimal, traditional and comprised of a single taskbar located on the bottom edge of the screen, from where the user can access the main menu and lunch applications, interact with running programs and system tray functions, as well as to easily cycle between the four virtual workspaces.

Default applications include the Viewnior image viewer, VLC Media Player, Gnumeric spreadsheet editor, Leafpad text editor, Glade UI designer, Mozilla Firefox web browser, mhWaveEdit audio editor, FFConvert video converter, and a plethora of useful utilities.

In conclusion, Ruse Linux is indeed a small and fast distribution of Linux that works very well on low-end machines. While desktop users will find various third-party applications under the "pet" and "sfs" directories, developers have access to the distro’s source in the "source" folder.