Clear Linux has Big Slackware Energy, in that if you want to use it as a daily driver, you’ll need to know your way around the underlying software. That said, I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to use it (despite what that one Phoronix post might have you believe). It really feels purpose-built for connecting to cloud-init or Ansible or something like that, for machines you’ll spin up then throw away tomorrow afternoon.

Things I’ve learned while tinkering with Intel’s new Clear Linux distribution. Will probably get updated from time to time, unless I get bored.

• Checking for updates: sudo swupd update
• Installing a new bundle (their version of a package group): sudo swupd bundle-add bundlename
  • Bundles you’ll probably want for general tinkering: dev-utils, tmux
  • Bundles you might want if you want a traditional GUI experience: desktop (GNOME) or maybe os-utils-gui (a basic xfce desktop)
• Growing the hard disk (probably needed if you want to install GNOME on a VM): see this (basically, grow it the VM-specific way, install the storage-utils bundle, use parted and resize2fs to actually use the new space)