Linux with no X: INX is a distro meant for console-only desktop use

I have to admit, I'm very intrigued by INX, a Ubuntu-based Linux live CD designed for desktop use without the X Window system. I first read about it at Linux Haxor, and after seeing the distro's screenshots and information page, and given my own wrangling with life at the command line, I'm ready to try it right now.

Right now, INX is a live-CD only distro and isn't meant to be installed, but what it might be able to do is give you some good ideas on how to flesh out your current Linux or BSD system to make life in the console that much better. That's the theory in my mind, anyway.

If you want to download the ISO (or get it via Torrent), it's 188 megabytes.

There are other systems that are, in one way or another, "meant" for console use, but none that I know of that are aimed in any way at the desktop user, with enough apps on board to keep you happy.

Here's what looks like a list of the packages in INX.

The biggest impediment to most users when it comes to being productive on the command line is the fact that almost all distributions focus on the X environment and not at all on the console. Any distro that puts the console experience first is something well worth looking into for both its own sake and for the greater cause of making the user more productive on the command line in any Linux/Unix system.

INX is something I will definitely be looking at closely.

Update: The first machine I tried to run INX on was the $15 Laptop, the Compaq Armada 7770dmt with 233 MHz Pentium II MMX and 144 MB RAM. It would start to boot, but at some point during the boot sequence, it got stuck in a loop and wouldn't get all the way to a prompt.

I'm not surprised because this underpowered laptop has trouble with Xubuntu, the Xfce version of Ubuntu. I thought that a console-only version might do better, but in this case it didn't. It could have something to do with the kernel being so relatively new and no longer supporting the hardware.

I have yet to try INX on my Dell desktops or the $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450), which is quite Ubuntu-friendly.