RefreshOS 2.5: Smooth, Stylish, and Almost Spotless Linux

The FOSS Force Distro of the Week — RefreshOS

After spending nearly a week with this distro, our Larry Cafiero tells us that RefreshOS “would be flawless if it wasn’t for the long boot time.”

To put it mildly, Linux distros provide a wide range of responses to folks installing them onto their systems. But very rarely does one make you want to sit up and say, “Who’s a good boy?”

RefreshOS just might. From the moment you land on the desktop, you’re greeted by an irresistible portrait of a beagle—one that’s hard not to fall in love with. While the project’s earlier version 2.0 went by the codename “Boundless Beagle,” the beagle spirit clearly lives on in version 2.5, released this past June.

Based on Debian — specifically on Debian 12 “Bookworm” Stable for the 2.5 release — RefreshOS has been known historically for its user-friendliness, speed, and elegant design that focuses on stability and customization. The latest iteration of the distro does not disappoint in any of those areas.

It should be noted that RefreshOS’s ties to Debian are strong; so much so that there is no native Snap or Flatpak support — only APT is spoken here. The distro features the KDE Plasma desktop, and some of its main features include a wide range of apps from the KDE software family as well as extended driver support.

The minimum system requirements for RefreshOS are: 2 GHz dual-core processor, 4 GB of system memory and 20 GB free hard drive space. Internet access is helpful for installation, but not required.

Installing RefreshOS

RefreshOS 2.5 uses the Calamares installer, which walks you through choices such as physical location (country or region), keyboard layout, and disk usage, before asking you for your name and login/password information. Once all that is done, the installation may take a little longer than you’d expect from a 3 GB ISO.

The installation includes Debian 12 “Bookworm” Stable, along with the 6.1.0-23-amd64 kernel. KDE Plasma 5.27.5 is also included, as well as the Brave browser, the LibreOffice suite, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), and a variety of productivity tools. Once installed, the reboot of RefreshOS tends to be a little slow.

On first boot, when you reach the login screen, you’re given the option of logging in with Wayland—the default—or X11. Booting into either doesn’t seem to affect the performance of the distro, based on my experience, but my first boot was with Wayland.

And voila! You’re up and running, treated to a desktop illustration dominated by the “Boundless Beagle” on the right side of the screen. A bottom panel features the Brave web browser, Nemo file manager, and the Discover software center to the left, while some of the system incidentals – desktops (two of them), volume, battery, Bluetooth, wireless network, and time/date – sit on the right.

Using RefreshOS

One of the first things you might notice is RefreshOS’s menu system, found behind the menu icon on the far left of the panel, which presents software in alphabetical order. What makes the menu unique, however, is that instead of going the usual route and listing the program’s name next to its icon, it describes what the software does, with the name following in parentheses. For example, the first item on the list appears as “Archiving Tool (Ark)” rather than just “Ark” next to its icon.

This approach continues all the way down the list. While it may take experienced users a bit of time to adjust, it gets high marks from me for helping newbies learn to navigate Linux.

KDE’s Discover Software Center, included with RefreshOS, deserves special mention. As someone who’s always installing extra software after setup, I found Discover often seemed one step ahead of me when searching for new programs. For example, I almost always add VLC media player after every install—something I don’t mind, since it lets me see how a distro handles additional software. In this case, the first item in Discover’s list of options for installation was — you guessed it — FVLC.

Not only did the installation of VLC — and a few others, including the Thunderbird email client — go smoothly, but the performance of the distro was on par with the best distros I’ve reviewed since starting this column. Also, using RefreshOS on both the Dell Inspiron 3521 and the older ZaReason Alto laptops was nothing short of remarkable, with both machines handling multiple apps running simultaneously in a flawless manner.

For day-to-day use, RefreshOS gets high marks for stability and speed. The Brave web browser deserves special mention for delivering high quality with impressive quickness — and it handled both serious internet research for this article and social-media lunacy with equal aplomb. Email via Thunderbird worked very well, though I should note that RefreshOS comes with KDE’s KMail client installed by default, which I unfortunately overlooked before installing Thunderbird.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, RefreshOS 2.5 offers a solid Linux option for both neophyte users and grizzled greybeards seeking a purely Debian-based system hooked up to a KDE Plasma experience. These features, alongside the distro’s tailored optimizations, ensure that it offers a distinctive experience compared to conventional KDE-based distributions, making the distro an ideal choice for users who value both aesthetics and functionality.

Also, RefreshOS’s focus on a clean environment and user-friendly features makes it appealing to users from a wide range of backgrounds. It’s especially suited to users transitioning to Linux from other operating systems.

To get RefreshOS 2.5, visit the download website.

Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for FOSS Force’s Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let us know! Offer your suggestions in the comments below (or use the “contact us” link under our masthead) and we’ll make an effort to make it so… No suggestion is too mainstream or too niche—let us know what you’d like to see!