Frugalware is an independent GNU/Linux distribution similar to Slackware, aiming at simplicity, speed and multimedia support. It features a wide software repository, managed by Pacman from Archlinux, which resolves dependencies and makes system updates easy. I’m going to walk you through the process of installing and configuring the latest version (0.5) of this outstanding OS.

Frugalware development is divided into two branches - current and stable. In current, the packages are updated regularly, as the new versions of programs appear. There are new updates available almost every day. In this way, the current branch is quite similar to Debian Unstable. The stable line is updated every half year and it takes a form of a new distribution release, with a custom code name ( currently “Siwenna”). This release cycle is very similar to the Ubuntu approach. Two architectures are supported: i686 and x86_64. The packages in Frugalware are fresh, quite stable and very close to the originals (custom patches are rare).

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