http://www.networkworld.com/article/2936258/linux/the-linux-aio-project-all-of-a-distros-desktops-in-one-iso.html
Want to try out all of the desktop environments for a distro? Linux AIO makes it a whole lot easier
If you are working
with Linux and, like me, want to explore all of the desktop options of a
distro, you’ll wind up downloading an endless list of disk images. I find this
both mildly annoying and quite time consuming and apparently so do other
people. Much to my pleasure, a small team (Milan Rajcic, Zeljko Popivoda, Erich
Eickmeyer, and Milos Mladenovic) decided to do something about it. They created
the Linux AIO project.
Linux AIO combines all
of the desktop environments available for each distro and wraps them up in a
disk image for a “live” (i.e. bootable) system that can be burned to a DVD or a
USB 4GB+/8GB+ flash drive. The team now publishes six compilations:
·
Linux AIO Ubuntu ISOs
·
Linux AIO Linux Mint
ISOs
·
Linux AIO LMDE
ISOs
·
Linux AIO Debian Live
ISOs
·
Linux AIO Fedora ISOs
·
Linux AIO Other ISO
releases
All compilations
include both current and old releases and the Ubuntu ISOs also includes the
Long Term Support (LTS) versions. To give you an idea of what’s on one of these
ISOs, the Linux AIO Debian Live 8.1.0 64bit ISO includes:
·
Debian Live 8.1.0
Cinnamon desktop AMD64
·
Debian Live 8.1.0
GNOME desktop AMD64
·
Debian Live 8.1.0 KDE
desktop AMD64
·
Debian Live 8.1.0 LXDE
desktop AMD64
·
Debian Live 8.1.0 MATE
desktop AMD64
·
Debian Live 8.1.0 Xfce
desktop AMD64
All of the ISOs are
hosted on SourceForge where they can be retrieved by either HTTP or BitTorrent.
The Linux AIO project also provides instructions for creating bootable USB
drives. Here’s what the Debian ISO displays on boot:
This is an excellent
concept and the only downside is the Linux AIO haveing the time and finanical
resources to keep up to date with distro releases. On the other hand, this is
an idea all distro developers really should adopt as a general strategy for promoting
the breadth and depth of their offerings.
