Clear Linux Has A Goal To Get 3x More Upstream Components In Their Distro

For those concerned that running Clear Linux means less available packages/bundles than the likes of Debian, Arch Linux, and Fedora with their immense collection of packaged software, Clear has a goal this year of increasing their upstream components available on the distribution by three times.

Intel Fellow Arjan van de Ven provided an update on their bundling state/changes for the distribution. In this update he shared that the Clear Linux team at Intel established a goal this year to have "three times more upstream components in the distro. That's a steep growth, and we want to do that with some basic direction and without reducing quality/etc. We have some folks figuring out what things are the most desired that we lack, so we can add those with most priority... but this is where again we more than welcome feedback."

That's quite an ambitious goal, especially if they maintain the lengths to which they are optimizing and testing packages. But with the resources of Intel at hand, it's certainly possible. It will be interesting to see just how diverse their package/bundle collection is by year's end.

For those not currently running Clear, a current listing of their available bundles can be seen here. Clear Linux also supports Flatpak to complement their own collection of packaged and optimized software.

Besides having this goal to expand the amount of packaged software on the distribution, they have been working to shrink the size of their package bundles, shifting how base components are put into bundles, and improving the package discovery process -- including the overhauling of the swupd search functionality.

More details on this status update of their bundling work via the Clear mailing list. From their mailing list is where you can also provide your feedback over missing software, etc.

In case you missed it from earlier this week, see my thoughts on using Clear Linux as a desktop distribution after having started using it earlier this month in place of Fedora Workstation on my main production box.