Apricity OS, another promising Linux distro has ceased development. “Lack of time” was cited as the major cause.
The Arch Linux based distribution, Apricity OS, has announced in an undated notice on its website that it’s shutting down. I learned the of news today when given a heads-up by a follower on Twitter.
The announcement is short and sweet:
“Like all good things, Apricity OS must come to an end. It has been our privilege to develop the operating system, and to be a part of a community as great as our own. But unfortunately, we no longer have time for its required upkeep. We hope that your time using our operating system has been enjoyable, and that you continue to explore using Linux in the future. You all, our users, have made this experience incredible for us, and we cannot thank you enough for the support.
Sincerely,
The Apricity OS Team”
A little over a year ago, on March 29, 2016, the then still in beta distro received a review on LinuxInsider by Jack M. Germain, who said, “Apricity OS Is Clean and Classy.” In spite of being in beta, the review was positive:
“Regardless of your preference, Apricity OS takes an approach that most Linux distros ignore. It caters to the cloud generation of computing. It has an integrated software feature built around the site-specific browser manager ICE, which provides the ability to put your favorite Web apps on the desktop and access them simply.
“This type of browser tool is not readily available through most distro repositories and the Synaptic Package Manager. The developers also incorporated software to minimize security risk.
“Another reason for my newfound attraction to GNOME is its suitability for touch screen interfaces, so it was a perfect mate for a recently acquired laptop. The Cinnamon version appears to be somewhat more lightweight — another nice surprise.”
The distro offered the choice of both GNOME and Cinnamon desktops. Unlike Arch, according to Germain, it was easy to install.
On Ausust 5, 2016, It’s FOSS reported on the distro’s first stable release. About a month later, on September 12, 2016, Distrowatch’s Jesse Smith wrote a review in which he said, “I like what Apricity is trying to do. The project is relatively new and off to a good start. There are some rough edges, but not many and I think the distribution will appeal to a lot of people, especially those who want to run a rolling release operating system with a very easy initial set up.”
The distro currently has a popularity ranking of 39 on Distrowatch.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Too bad. Well, Antergos has served me well for the last 2 years.
Personally, I never liked the name. It sounded too… feminine.
@InvisibleInk As a woman tech writer, I’m not going to bother to comment on your comment.
Female tech journalists off any description are unfortunately too rare.
I have not run Apricity, but I have been burned twice by smaller distros. I now stick to more well known and used distros,like Debian and Ubuntu. It sucks to wake up and find your distro closing, and your repositories shut down.
My distro being discontinued also led me to dual boot Linux distros. I now keep at least two running on my hard drive.
this is a shame, I hate it when distro’s shut down.
I have nerver used this OS before, but it did look good, I am currently running manjaro Linux dual booting with spyware 10 for school.
I hope that one day Linux will be the desktop of the year, so with that being said I hope that if it does, hackers won’t infect it with malware and the such like spyware 10.
@Dietrich: As it happens, I’m planning on switching my new HTPC over to Antergos, possibly this evening. (I’ve been using Fedora, but I just added a new graphics card which has caused some programs to crash with memory errors; I’ve been unable to find a solution, but the issue doesn’t seem to happen on an Antergos live disc.)
I’ve never used an Arch-based distro before but I have used rolling-release distros in the past (I used Gentoo as my primary for a couple of years). I think a rolling release will serve me well for staying up to date on rapidly-developing projects like amdgpu, but I’m also concerned about breakage; I initially chose Fedora because I thought it would have a good balance between leading-edge tech (Wayland, Flatpak, etc.) and the stability that comes with periodic releases. I take it that you haven’t had much trouble with Antergos’s stability and package interoperation?
@ Don Mouse
If you think it looked good, you might want to download the Apricity Theme, Icons, and Wallpapers while you still can at:
https://github.com/Apricity-OS
@Christine Hall
Unfortunately, you just did. One should show compassion for a person like InvisibleInk, who obviously has issues, perhaps a few session in Thereapy, might help.
Wow, someone named tracyanne on this board is picking on my. My feelings are hurt, and I feel so bullied I want to cry. /s
Sad to see a distro shut down. This was one of the reasons I chose Fedora and OpenSuSE as my mains. I used to love “Fuduntu” but they shut down. Then there was Stella but they also shut down. Now I don’t have to worry about losing my repos or anything else since the two distros I use are backed by corporations who have enough finances to keep them up and running.
Correction. The distro Stella Linux is very much alive. I was mistaken in my name-callig! LoL! It was “Storm” Linux I “lost”!…
Distros come and go, it should be expected.
What’s important is that advancements made by a distro live on somewhere else.
I never used Apricity. What made it special?