Bluestar Linux

Bluestar Linux Buestar Linux is an Arch-based Linux distribution. Packed with a wide variety of up-to-date software

Bluestar Linux is provided in 4 distinct distributions - Desktop, DeskPro, DeskPro-Developer and Desktop-E17. Supporting both the i686 and x86_64 platforms, Bluestar uniquely provides additional versions prepared specifically for the Intel GMA3600 graphics chipset at a 1024x600 resolution. Due to its close relationship to Arch Linux, Bluestar Linux always includes the latest stable versions of sof

tware available. All Bluestar distributions are packaged with Apper and PacmanXG for seamless and flexible software management. Software update notifications are configurable and occur on a regular basis. Bluestar Linux provides a KDM/KDE Desktop Environment as its default, although the Desktop-E17 distribution is built upon Enlightenment for users who prefer a lighter desktop experience. Bluestar Linux is a systemd-compliant Linux OS, and thus provides the user with a fast-booting, highly optimized Linux environment.

09/02/2026

FYI - Sonic Desktop

I just pushed 64 packages from Sonic to the bluestar repository. This doubles the number of sonic-specific packages I previously built and released. I have a working build - well, 10 of them, technically - and the last one appears to be working fairly well. There were a number of gotchas that had to be worked out in the desktop settings. I have a few more days of work to get to something that supports all 4 installation options, but I would think I'll have something to release by the end of the week, maybe sooner. The base installation is good, but has a couple of hundred reinstalls I have to address to get a solid base package list. I'll use that as the base for the other 3.

I will give y'all a heads-up if you're interested in trying out Sonic. I went spelunking at their github repository and there are actually around 150 source code sub-projects. So, almost 100 more to come.

Anyway, there are a few minor differences in the settings and some of the bslx repository packages needed to be rebuilt and renamed for sonic. The object is to remove plasma, so anything with a specific dependency on plasma will crash or simply not work. Be aware of this if you're planning on testing it out. I probably won;t have time to test all of the apps, although the fact that they installed without conflict means they most probably work just fine. Everything I've run so far hasn't crashed, but I can't guarantee that for every app.

The build I'll be releasing will be Sonic-specific and separate from the usual releases. For the foreseeable future I don't see merging the 2.

Cheers

08/13/2026

bslx-7.1.8-3-2026.08.12-x86_64 has been released and is available for download from

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bluestarlinux/files/distro/

I re-pushed the 7.1.8 distro with the nvidia drivers restored and the appropriate kernel parameters added to efiboot for those drivers. All the linux firmware was also updated today, so it made it worth rebuiling.

Cheers

08/08/2026

bslx-7.1.6-2-2026.08.07-x86_64 has been released and is available for download from

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bluestarlinux/files/distro/

Uefi booting has been fixed as far as I can tell. Because of the graphics issues, I've removed the nvidia driver, which you can install if you need it from the Arch repository. The nouveau driver is, of course, available for use with Nvidia adapters. You will get better performance from the proprietary driver.

Legacy boot is still going to be a better graphical experience because it will load the actual hardware driver during startup. Uefi uses software rendering. It's a little slower.

Cheers

08/07/2026

The AUR is still frozen. I assume this is causing all kinds of issues, so I also assume this shouldn't last too long. The Palemoon maintainer sent out an email with the PKGBUILD and .SRCINFO diffs which is why there's a new release available. Crickets, otherwise.

Meanwhile, I discovered that the uefi boot isn't working very well. Apparently, somewhere along the line they made some significant changes to how efi initializes and uses graphics. Long story short, it now uses its own frame buffer at boot time and has to try to hand off graphics to the hardware and that handoff is glitchy AF. So you get a broken splash screen, no background, missing icons, mangled mouse-over popups. None of this was going on the last time I tested it.

In any case, I've been working on fixing it. To get it working, all graphics adapters must be shut down, the efifb (EFI Frame Buffer) device specified and, critically, a screen resolution has to be defined. I've set it to 1920x1080. If your NVRAM doesn't support this resolution, it will drop you down to a resolution it does support.

I'll be pushing a new 7.1.5 release some time later today.

Cheers

08/05/2026

Just an FYI that the AUR is currently frozen. Apparently, a good number of bad actors have been polluting the AUR pool, and it got worse after they stopped package adoptions with, again, bad actors pushing malicious code into the git repositories.

So, for now, there will be few, if any updates, to the AUR packages built and stored in the bslx repository until Arch figures out how to stop this.

I will keep checking daily.

Cheers

Address

Hagerstown, MD

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Bluestar Linux posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Bluestar Linux:

Shortcuts

Share

Category