Garuda Linux

Introduction to Garuda Linux

Garuda Linux is a distribution of Linux which is Arch Linux OS-based. It is available in a huge variety of famous Linux desktop environments, such as modified releases of the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment. It offers the updated model of rolling release with the help of the Pacman as the package manager. The Garuda term, which arises from Hinduism, is specified as a divine eagle-like king of birds and the sun birds.

What is Calamares?

It is an installer framework. It is very customizable by design in order to validate a huge variety of use cases and requirements. Calamares claims to be distribution-agnostic, inclusive, pragmatic, beautiful, usable, and easy. It contains an advanced partitioning aspect and supports both automated and manual partitioning actions. Calamares is the first installer using an automated option, i.e., "Replace Partition", which makes it simple to reuse any partition again and again for distribution inspection.

Key Points of Calamares:

• Calamares isn't an installer for any particular Linux distribution.
• It's used by Netrunner, Maui, KaOS, and Manjaro Linux, but it is not Manjaro Linux.
• It is an independent product.
• The team of Calamares closely works with Linux distributors to give the best experience.
• Calamares doesn't claim to be the "standard" installer.
• Several distributions already have very mature solutions for the system installer, but a few don't, and that is where Calamares can be used.

History of Garuda Linux

Garuda Linux was published on 26 March 2020. It is developed and integrated by many developers across the world. This OS was detected by Shrinivas Vishnu Kumbhar. He was a university student in India and SGS in Germany.

Features of Garuda Linux

The installation process of Garuda Linux is implemented using a graphical installer called Calamares. The rolling release model defines that the user doesn't need to reinstall/upgrade the entire operating system for keeping it up-to-date in line using the latest release. Garuda Linux applies systemd as the unit software.

The package management is managed by Pacman by command line and front-end user interface package manager tools like the pre-installed Pamac. Also, it can be set up as either a bleeding edge or a stable system in line with Arch. This operating system contains a colorized user interface, which comes in several options, along with the option for further customizing the user preferences.

Linux is a performance-oriented and user-friendly distribution. The installation process is easy to manage due to several added advanced GUI tools to handle the system, unlike Arch. Garuda Linux offers system security with automatic BTRFS snapshots if upgrading, which we can boot into when an upgrade fails.

Some other features of Garuda Linux are mentioned below:

• It has a Linux-zen kernel.
• It has BTRFS with zstd compression as the default filesystem.
• Before system upgrades, it offers automatic snapper snapshots.
• It is easy to use, set up, and install.
• It provides a custom-themed desktop experience that's pleasant on the eyes and us of our way.
• It gives a GUI to manage the kernel and drivers.
• It supports a proprietary Nvidia driver. We select the option, i.e., 'driver=nonfree' at startup.
• It offers GUI tools for system administration and snapshot management.
• It provides a helpful and friendly community.

Desktop environments of Garuda Linux

Garuda Linux offers several releases with many package defaults and desktop environments. Each has Arch Linux as the base, and the team of Garuda Linux give their other package builds by Chaotic-AUR, which is a part of every release.

System Requirements

Hardware requirements of Garuda Linux vary on the usage of the desktop environment, but they are almost the same:

Minimum requirements:

• 4 GB RAM
• 30 GB storage

Recommended requirements:

• 8 GB RAM
• 40 GB storage

Also, Garuda Linux needs a storage device that includes 4 GB of space for its standard releases. Gaming desktop environments need a storage device with 8 GB of storage space.

Garuda Downloader

It is an ISO user-friendly downloader concentrating on saving bandwidth by delta downloads by using zsync2. It gives an easy user interface to download the latest live images of every official version. Manually, we can choose any previous ISO file on Linux as a "seed" file to save bandwidth. It gives a button to launch a suggested flashing tool quickly after an ISO file is downloaded. It is the suggested way to have Garuda Linux.

Installation Process

1. Start the PC and click on the manufacturer specific key to launch the setup utility of our device. Basic keys used: F1, F2, F9, F10, F11, F12, Delete, or Esc.
2. Secure boot and deactivate fastboot. It may not be possible to explicitly deactivate the latter- we can try to clear the secure boot keys rather. Also, we can check our motherboard/device for other information.
3. Make sure that the SATA controller of our device is set to the AHCI mode in the setup utility of our device. If not, the Linux kernel might be unable to find our drive.
4. Configure our device to utilize UEFI in its setup utility only if our firmware supports UEFI. UEFI is preferred over BIOS if possible.
5. Establish a bootable USB with Garuda Downloader.
6. Boot the usb drive from the setup utility:
   We might see different commands for a similar device. For instance, we might see a BIOS USB drive and a UEFI USB drive. All commands use a similar media and device but boot the system in a distinct firmware mode. We suggest booting the drive in the UEFI mode if mentioned.
7. Launch the installer and follow the installation process after starting the live media.

Recommendations

• In Garuda Linux, dual booting may cause unexpected problems. We know that the other operating systems may overwrite the bootloader over BIOS systems or modify the priorities of EFI boot on UEFI.
• Our distribution is utilized for performance on real hardware. It is not recommended to install it on a virtual machine because it might be a bad experience (e.g., the setup assistant isn't working).
• Whenever possible, try to ignore using Flatpak and Snapd. They are unsupported.