 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 4, 30 June 2003 |
| How not to fork Gentoo Linux |
So what do you think of the attempt to fork Gentoo Linux and create Zynot? In principle, there is nothing wrong with taking a GPL project and creating a new distribution; this has been done many times in the past. However, in this case I am going to stick my neck out and argue that Zynot is unlikely to succeed.
Why? Firstly, it has started off on a wrong foot. Taking a project and announcing a fork is a perfectly fine endeavour; launching a personal attack and dirty campaign against the leader of the original project is most definitely not! The long announcement contains little about the project's objective, road map and time line, instead it concentrates on the author's past achievements and personal grievances. How would you like to join this project? Can you be confident that next time it won't be you who receives a call from the author's attorney? No, this is not a project announcement. This document smacks of a sensationalist campaign designed to grab media attention.
Secondly, do you know who Daniel Robbins is? Of course you do, he is the creator and Chief Architect of Gentoo Linux, the fastest growing Linux distribution of all times. If you have ever read any of his superb and authoritative articles on IBM's developerWorks, then you know that Daniel Robbins is not only an excellent coder, he is also one of the most prominent GNU/Linux authorities around! No, Daniel Robbins doesn't need to write lengthy documents describing his personal achievements; his work and tens of thousands of satisfied users are far more credible references on his Curriculum Vitae.
Thirdly, distribution forks generally don't have high probability of success. How many times has Debian been forked? Do you remember Storm Linux, Progeny, Corel Linux? Has any of the surviving Debian-based projects been able to come close to the popularity of the Debian proper? And what about Red Hat? The number of distributions that have taken Red Hat as the base to create a "new" distribution can't be too far from 100, but how many of them have succeeded in getting anywhere near the number of users that Red Hat enjoys today? One, that's how many. Only Mandrake has succeeded in attaining a decent market penetration, while the rest are either long dead or have a combined market share too miniscule to figure in even most detailed statistics.
Is Gentoo Linux perfect? No, it isn't. Is its organisation and management perfect? Unlikely. Do Gentoo users love Gentoo Linux? Absolutely! Given that, I don't think there is any reason to worry about the future of Gentoo. This event is not a community split, it is nothing but a fork created by a disgruntled individual and as such, it is unlikely to attract more that a trickle of followers. Nevertheless, Zynot is a legitimate Linux-based distribution, so as soon as the project releases files for download and installation, it will be added to the DistroWatch database and monitored for releases.
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| Released Last Week |
The big story of last week was of course the release of LindowsOS 4.0. There is still a lot of negativity about the company and its products in the Linux community and if the page hit count is anything to go by, the interest in LindowsOS has been dropping. Nevertheless, the company has put together a real Linux distribution, it has users who have, thanks to LindowsOS, made a successful switch to Linux and it provides a very active user forum, with Lindows.com employees always around. These are real achievements, which deserve compliments.
So what's new in LindowsOS 4.0? The first thing that comes to mind after visiting the product information page is that the product range and pricing structure have become a lot more confusing. Given that Lindows.com are experts at marketing, it seems that price restructuring was done to convey a message of affordability and price reductions, so that the true cost of the product is not immediately apparent. This is a normal marketing practice by many commercial companies, although rarely used in the world of Linux distributions.
As an example, let's compare the pricing of LindowsOS 3.0 with LindowsOS 4.0. The download edition of LindowsOS 3.0 sold for US$120 and this included unrestricted one-year access to the Click-N-Run (CNR) warehouse. Now, LindowsOS 4.0 costs US$50, while access to CNR, which is essential if you use LindowsOS, costs additional US$50 per year. However, CNR now excludes commercial applications, which are priced separately (StarOffice is US$30, Photogenics is US$20 and TuxRacer Deluxe is US$10). As you can see, LindowsOS 4.0 will at best cost you only marginally less than its predecessor, while it will be more expansive in certain configurations. Suddenly, the self-proclaimed "world's most affordable software" becomes one of the most expensive Linux distributions available on the market.
The second thing you will notice about LindowsOS 4.0 is a remarkable lack of new features. A forum user has argued that "one-click configuration, one-click OS install, one-click software install, one-click upgrading..." are great new features unique to LindowsOS 4.0. I disagree. Look closely at the screenshots of this one-click-upgrade "feature" and you'll notice that the so called "one-click" will merely launch an upgrade wizard. It would be a poorly designed wizard if it did not require any decision making and further mouse clicks! Similarly, the "zero maintenance" phrase used in the same story is nothing but a marketing stunt; operating systems are far too complex for anybody to claim that theirs require no maintenance. No, there are no new features in LindowsOS, because if there were, the marketing department wouldn't need to invent phrases like "one-click wizard" and "zero maintenance".
Nevertheless, LindowsOS appears to be a solid product, at least from the first reviews published by TuxReports and ExtremeTech. While the versions of XFree86, KDE as well as most server applications remained unchanged from LindowsOS 3.0, a lot of work seems to have gone into making CNR and the entire software installation infrastructure more reliable. Overall, despite the lack of new features, LindowsOS seems an excellent product for its target market.
Anybody interested in a full review? I've never installed LindowsOS before, but I could probably get a review copy if there is enough interest. Otherwise I'd rather review some other interesting distribution - one that I've been eyeing lately is Arch Linux (not to be confused with Ark Linux), which should release version 0.5 shortly. Please indicate your preference in the reader comments area.
Other new releases this week: Bonzai Linux 2.1, Damn Small Linux 0.3.11, K12LTSP Linux 3.1.1 and ARMA aka Omoikane GNU/Linux 2.2. On the development side of things, we have seen the first release candidate from Trustix (2.0rc1) and another new beta release from ROCK Linux (2.0.0-beta6).
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| Expected This Week |
The Morphix project has indicated a possible release of a new version 0.4 some time soon: "I'm aiming for a release somewhere end of this month, or the first week of July, want to have it more or less working this time :-)."
While on the subject of new releases, Aryan Ameri has written a rough estimate of Debian's next stable release, probably version 3.1 and code name "Sarge": "The above gives us an approximate time line of 4 months plus an estimated 2 months' worth of glitches and forgotten stuff. This means that approximately 6 months from now, Sarge will go into freeze. The freeze period will also (hopefully) take no more than 6 months. This means that Sarge should be released 1 year from now." The article was inspired by this email from Drew Scott Daniels sent to the Debian developers' mailing list and it summarises likely features, packages and release time line. Read it here.
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| Web Site News |
The site's internationalisation was given a double boost last week. Thomas Chung was very kind to help with translating the menus and frequently used phrases into Korean, while Francois Thunus has done the same for Danish. Many thanks for the contribution.
One new distribution has been added to the database - a Thailand-based project called LinuxTLE. This is a modified Red Hat-based distribution with support for Thai and complete with OfficeTLE, a Thai-enabled version of OpenOffice. The Thai government has recently initiated a programme to launch 100,000 low-cost computers with LinuxTLE pre-installed on them. LinuxTLE is a non-commercial project; if you can read Thai, visit the distribution's web site here.
Linare Desktop is a new commercial Linux distribution and a supplier of sub US$200 PC systems. Besides revealing that Linare Desktop will be based around KDE and OpenOffice, not many other technical details are available at the moment. The product is expected to launch in August and will cost US$20.
QRey has been removed from the list of to-be-listed distributions. The project's single-page web site provides very little information without joining the non-free workshops, which makes compiling a page full of useful data an impossible task. Also, the web pages of both Linuxin and Luminux continue to be inaccessible and the status of both has been relegated to "discontinued".
DistroWatch database summary:
Number of distributions in the database: 151
Number of discontinued distributions: 20
Number of distributions on the waiting list: 34
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| Reader Feedback |
"I would like an update as to when Xandros is going to release the next version." So would many others, no doubt. Unfortunately, Xandros chooses to be very tight-lipped, keeping everybody in the dark as to their future plans. With Mandrake, Red Hat and other "open" distributions, we don't need frequent announcements about the development status, because we can peek into their cookers and rawhides to see what they are up to. This is not the case with closed distributions so they owe up to their users (not to mention stake holders) to report on the development status frequently. If they don't, people will start speculating. Instead of getting new customers, the potential ones will take the wait-and-see attitude and possibly move on to other distributions.
So what's up with Xandros? Any information about its progress is so hard to find, but you are in luck - or I was when I inadvertently came across this forum post signed by Ming Poon, VP of Software Development at Xandros Corporation: "[Xandros Desktop] V2 is on its way and will be available by the end of the year. As expected, there will be many improvements built into V2 that fits the older computer while making use of the many features that are available from a modern PC today." In a later post on the same forum, Mr Poon reveals a few more details: "V2 will be KDE 3 based for sure. We have our code running in KDE 3 for a few months now. Even KDE 3 is very stable now, it still has those usual UI bugs that will confuse a heck out of an average user."
So there you have it - Xandros Desktop 2.0 is set to be released before this year is over. If the distribution's first release is anything to go by, it should be a great product designed for ease of use and plenty of interesting new features. Hopefully, Mr Poon will soon give us much more detailed information on his company's official web site...
On a separate note, several readers submitted news about reviews of LinuxInstall.org 3.0 (OSNews) and Bonzai Linux 2.0 (PCLinuxOnline). After reading through them, I decided against publishing the news on the main page in both cases. The reason? Reviews are indeed frequently featured on the front page, together with news about distribution releases. However, a distribution review is a detailed account of the reviewer's experiences with the given product over a period of at least several days and should ideally include sections about the hardware configuration, pros and cons, conclusions and recommendations. Note the emphasis on "detailed". A few paragraphs of talk about installation and included applications does not constitute a review. I am not saying that these articles were bad or that they shouldn't have been published; in fact, it's refreshing to see users writing about less well-known distributions. Just don't expect them to make the headlines and don't demand that they do so.
That's all for this week, see you next Monday,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
DemoLinux
We wanted to make it possible to everybody to look at what Linux can offer, and to make it possible for software publishers wanting to show their Linux-based software to distribute a no hassle hands-off demo CD. But this kind of CD makes also a wonderful Linux-to-go solution: you might carry your favorite desktop configuration in your pocket, sit in front of a non-Linux box, boot from the CD and be in front of your preferred environment in minutes.
Status: Discontinued
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