Unity Linux is a Mandriva-based minimalist distribution with the Openbox window manager

Unity Linux is a Mandriva-based minimalist distribution with the Openbox window manager and Smart advanced package management tool.

The project's main goal is to provide a core operating system upon which more complete solutions can be built.

The first public development release was announced earlier today: "The Unity Linux project is pleased to announce its first beta release, 2010 Beta 1. Mandriva-based Unity Linux uses the MkLiveCD project, which allows developers to create their own distribution on top of a Unity Linux core. Nearly 7,000 packages are available after installation.

In an effort to give distribution developers maximum flexibility, the core is kept small and usable, but not too basic. Unity Linux provides developers with the bare minimum - just enough to make use of remastering tools, the Smart package manager, a 2.6.31.6 kernel, and RPM 5."

Update: (via Distrowatch)

The growing trend of developing Linux distribution featuring the latest Enlightenment 17 continues with the release of Unity Linux 2010_02 "Unite17": "We have another Unite17! A few sentences of the changes: brand-new exterior and interior, because I took the liberty of using the testing repositories. E17 at least not alpha, but beta - of course, there are still some annoying bugs, such as that if you want to start an application, which would need administrator rights, some incomprehensible error message appears; transparency works with minimum of memory while in use; the minimum system requirements at least PIII 900 MHz processor and at least 384 MB of RAM, OpenGL compatible graphics card; the CD image size is 2.5 GB, so it's not small; new Linux kernel (2.6.35.7), updated applications, and two new browser add-ons - Chrome TV plugin, which allows all the available Internet TV broadcast monitored, and an open-source YouTube video downloading add-on."

Here is the full release announcement with a screenshot.

Download: unite17_2010_02.iso (2,536MB, MD5).

Recent releases:

• 2010-11-19: Distribution Release: Unity Linux 2010_02 "Unite17"
• 2010-07-11: Distribution Release: Unity Linux 2010
• 2010-03-10: Development Release: Unity Linux 2010 RC1
• 2010-01-04: Development Release: Unity Linux 2010 Beta 2
• 2009-12-10: Development Release: Unity Linux 2010 Beta 1

Unity Linux is a minimalist distribution and live CD based on Mandriva Linux and PCLinuxOS. The project's main goal is to create a base operating system on which more complete, user-oriented distribution can be built - either by other distribution projects or by the users themselves. Unity Linux uses Openbox as the default window manager. Its package management is handled via Smart and RPM 5 which can download and install additional software packages from the project's online repository.

Screenshots.

Official Screenshots of Unity Linux