EasyOS Excalibur-series 7.0

EasyOS was created in 2017, derived from Quirky Linux, which in turn was derived from Puppy Linux in 2013. Up until mid-2025, Easy was built in woofQ, which takes as input binary packages from any distribution, and uses them on top of the unique EasyOS infrastructure.

Throughout 2020, the official release for x86_64 PCs was the Buster-series, built with Debian 10.x Buster DEBs.

EasyOS has also been built with packages compiled from source, using a fork of OpenEmbedded (OE). Currently, the Scarthgap release of OE has been used, to compile binary packages for x86_64.

Earlier releases of EasyOS compiled in OE are the  Kirkstone-series, Dunfell-series and Pyro-series. They have also been compiled for aarch64 and EasyOS runs on the Raspberry Pi4.

The last release of the x86_64 Dunfell-series was January 10, 2023, version 4.5.5. The announcement and release notes are here:

https://bkhome.org/news/202301/easyos-dunfell-series-version-455-released.html

The latest (maintenance) release of the Kirkstone-series was on August 14, 2024, version 5.8.4, announcement here:

https://bkhome.org/news/202408/easyos-kirkstone-series-version-584.html

The latest (maintenance) release of the Scarthgap-series was version 6.6.9, on May 27:

https://bkhome.org/news/202505/easyos-scarthgap-series-version-669-released.html

The Daedalus-series was first released in October 2024. It is built with packages from the Devuan Daedalus repository (equivalent to Debian Bookworm). The latest release is version is 6.6.8, see announcement:

https://bkhome.org/news/202505/easyos-daedalus-series-version-668-released.html

The "new kid on the block" is EasyOS built with woofQ2. As from mid-July 2025, all of the above are retired; still available for download, but no longer being developed. However, it may be that Easy Scarthgap will have one or more maintenance releases.

woofQ2-built EasyOS has version numbering starting from 7.0. It is built from Devuan Excalibur (equivalent to Debian Trixie) binary packages, with major structural changes, including based on Debian's APT package management and enhanced Easy Containers.

It should be noted that version 7.0+ implies improvements and less bugs compared with earlier releases; however, this series is a complete redesign, from the ground-up, and likely there are some brand-new issues. We hope that nothing serious emerges, and anyway, updating is very simple, via the "update" button on the desktop.

The latest version is becoming mature, though Easy is an experimental distribution and some parts are under development and are still considered as beta-quality. However, you will find this distro to be a very pleasant surprise, or so we hope.

Version 7.0 release notes

Major changes since the woofQ-built EasyOSs. Some highlights:

There have been major challenges, seemingly all conquered (touch wood). Let us know in the forum if you encounter any issues.


About EasyOS

Why would you choose EasyOS instead of some other Linux distribution?

For a quick overview of how EasyOS is different from other Linux distributions, read this:

https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.html

You will notice that the download is quite small, yet contains just about every application you would ever need, such as Firefox|Chromium browser, LibreOffice, Gimp, Dia, Inkscape, Planner, Grisbi, Osmo, NoteCase, Celluloid and Audacious. There are powerful system managers, such as NetworkManager, EasyContainers, EasyVersionControl and BluePup.

BluePup for example, is a bluetooth manager, unique to EasyOS. Another unique tool is 'easydd', a GUI or CLI tool for writing a drive-image file to SD-card or USB-stick.

Links

Website: https://easyos.org/

News: https://bkhome.org/news

Forum: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=63

We are very grateful to Ibiblio for hosting EasyOS, right from the start:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/

EasyOS has a mirror of ibiblio.org in Europe, thanks to NLUUG, here:

https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/easyos/

Thanks also to aarnet for mirroring in Australia:

https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/


Legal statement:  https://easyos.org/about/legal-disclaimers-miscellania.html