 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 58, 19 July 2004 |
Welcome to this year's 29th edition of DistroWatch Weekly. Thanks to all who sent well wishes to me (Robert) during my illness. Now on to more interesting topics below.
Content:
GRUB - The Second Coming
In order to boot Linux, you need a boot loader (note that not every OS needs or has one - MS-DOS and Windows 95/98/Me, for example, never had a boot loader). These days, when people tend to install more than one OS on their hard drive(s), one should ideally have a "multiboot" loader (one which can install multiple OSs). In years past, people would actually pay money for such a thing (anybody remember System Commander which sold for US$99?).
Nowadays, we have several good free open source alternatives to choose from. From the earliest days of Linux, there was LILO (LInux LOader), but more recently GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) has gained popularity. As for which one is better, it's sort of like the war between vi and emacs - good luck on trying to get a room full of geeks to agree on this one. Many Linux distros avoid the debate by offering both LILO and GRUB, allowing users to choose which one to install.
GRUB was originally the creation of Erich Stefan Boleyn. Due to some other commitments, Erich couldn't continuing maintaining GRUB. The current maintainer is Gordon Matzigkeit, and GRUB has morphed into a GNU project with many new features added.
Good as GRUB is (and it is really good), it's about to get a major shot of steroids. A new, improved more powerful GRUB dubbed "GRUB 2" is in the works. The original GNU GRUB has been renamed "GRUB Legacy". GRUB 2 offers the following benefits over GRUB Legacy:
- Create a compact core image. This will make Stage 1.5 unnecessary.
- Add support for dynamic loading to the core image, so that it can
extend itself at the run time rather than at the build time.
- Add real memory management, to make GNU GRUB more extensible.
- Add a more object-oriented framework for file systems, files, devices,
drives, terminals, commands, and OS loaders.
- Add support for internationalization. This includes support for
non-ASCII character code, message catalogs like
gettext,
fonts, graphics console, and so on.
- Add an actual localization, based on the above internationalization
support. We will target on Japanese as the first step.
- Segregate code specific to i386-pc from generic code, to make
GNU GRUB portable.
- Add support for cross-platform installation.
- Develop additional software packages which will help our project and
hopefully other projects.
More details can be found on the GNU GRUB home page. Also see the "GRUB To The Rescue" article under the new "Tips, Tricks and Hints" column.
A New BSD Rises
Practically every week we see the birth of a new Linux distro (and often the death of an existing distro as well). Yes, Linux distros come and go with the wind. Many of these distros were the creation of a single starving student, and in some cases never get used by more than one person. True, a few distros are the work of a team of paid professional programmers who intend to take the world by storm with their new product, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
It's a rather different situation in the BSD world. This may, in part, be due to the fact that there are still far fewer BSD users than Linux users in existence, but another factor is no doubt the existence of Linux From Scratch which allows any home hobbyist to slap together a Linux distro relatively quickly. Perhaps in the future we'll be seeing a BSD From Scratch, but for now there isn't one.
In view of the above, it's quite a major (rare) event when a new BSD comes into existence. Last week we witnessed the arrival of DragonFly BSD 1.0 (and this week a 1.0a bug-fixed version). The project is the brainchild of Matt Dillon and some devoted followers. DragonFly is a fork of FreeBSD 4.x - apparently the DragonFly developers were not happy with the direction FreeBSD 5.x was taking. Specifically, they wanted to implement SMP in a different way from FreeBSD 5.x, and they've also taken out a fair bit of the Perl dependent stuff, plus they thought they could do a better job of writing an installer.
Everyone who's tried DragonFly agrees that it's fast, but also far from complete despite the "1.0" (or "1.0a") designation. The DragonFly team will have their work cut for them trying to equal and improve upon FreeBSD, which by all accounts is no slouch of an operating system.
Also this week, the folks over at ekkoBSD decided to throw in the towel. EkkoBSD was a recent fork of OpenBSD, and the developers had some good ideas, one of which was to make the system more user-friendly. However, as they soon discovered, creating a major operating system is not trivial, and all the more so when the developers are basically volunteers doing the work in their spare time.
Which begs the question - does the world really need another BSD? Given that the BSDs don't command a very large share of the world's OS market, wouldn't it be better for developers to pool their resources rather than going off in different directions? The Unix market has been afflicted with this issue for several decades, and some say that Linux (which is relatively young compared to Unix) already suffers from "distroitis". Perhaps less is really more? Then again, competition is generally a good thing - isn't it? An interesting point for debate.
Standardizing Linux
Along similar lines to the above story, some have wondered whether or not Linux should be "standardized" in some way or other to avoid the fragmentation that turned Unix into a synonym for chaos. Some may recall United Linux, announced May 30, 2002. Undoubtedly the most ambitious attempt at getting Linux developers to cooperate, United Linux was an alliance between Conectiva, SuSE, SCO and Turbolinux. As things turned out, SCO had a change of management and became anything but an ally. The remaining three players managed to turn out version 1.0, but there are no plans for 2.0. To look back at articles like this one, it seems almost laughable that UL was taken so seriously.
Less ambitious than UL, but ultimately more influential, has been the Linux Standard Base. In the early days of Linux development, distros were so non-standardized that developers were giving different names to the same files, and putting them into different directories. The LSB (which relies on voluntary compliance) has been fairly influential. However, in a recent article posted at Newsforge, writer Jay Lyman questioned whether or not the LSB could survive.
There are several significant things about the Linux Standards Base that the author didn't mention in the article. The LSB is the offspring of the Free Standards Group, an organization whose membership is dominated by corporations. That in itself is hardly scandalous, but more troubling is that the Free Standards Group has been reluctant to take input from projects outside the member companies influence. In particular, Debian users feel particularly miffed that the LSB specifies that software packages should be delivered in RPM package format. This is despite the fact that Debian's "deb" format is both older and - in the opinion of many - better. Debian developers have basically rejected this "guidance," and ironically the "deb" format has been picking up converts and could very well wind up pushing RPM to the fringe. On the other hand, some have argued that this is a non-issue since the RPM format specified by the LSB is well-supported by the Debian "alien" program. However, not everyone is totally convinced, and the question remains, "Is the LSB going to survive?".
Internet Explorer Living On Borrowed Time?
Just when you thought that Microsoft might finally be getting its act together in terms of security, someone comes along and pours cold water on the whole idea.
It's no secret that many of the security holes in Windows are a direct result of Microsoft's decision to co-mingle Internet Explorer's code base with that of the operating system. This is the very opposite of the traditional modular approach of Unix programming. The deeper you integrate a program into the operating system, the likelier that a programming bug will have far-reaching ramifications that no one foresaw. It also means that fixing one simple bug could trigger a whole new slew of bugs. Thus when a security exploit is discovered in Internet Explorer, Microsoft's programmers (who by all accounts are actually quite good at their job) are forced to spend a huge amount of time testing to make sure that their patch won't create a worse problem than it solves.
In view of the above, one would expect that Microsoft would be expending an effort to make Internet Explorer more modular, but according to this story published at OSNews, the exact opposite seems to be taking place. The author, Roberto J. Dohnert, participated in an online chat with the Internet Explorer development team, and was told that IE would be integrated even more tightly into future versions of Windows. This is, no doubt, great news for developers of anti-virus software and computer security consultants. Indeed, one can almost hear the champagne bottles being uncorked at the corporate headquarters of major anti-virus vendors. As someone once said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
However, Mr. Dohnert took his arguement one step further and suggested that IE's continuing security problems might lead to it being abandoned totally by users. Personally, I doubt that. I have many Windows-using friends who have suffered repeated virus attacks - their email address books have been hijacked, their machine was made into a spam zombie, and their hard drive became a repository of warez, all without their knowledge. And what did they do about it when they finally discovered the problem? Nothing. As long as they can boot, surf the web and send an email to grandma, everything is fine. Downloading and installing a security patch is just too much trouble.
As for those of us who don't even have Windows installed, this is not the time to become smug. Security exploits have indeed plagued non-Microsoft browsers. Other than keeping your system up-to-date, the best protection is running a good firewall. If you're not running a server, you probably don't need any incoming ports to be open, so lock them down tight. Complacency can be your worst enemy.
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| Released Last Week |
Yoper V2
Yoper V2 has been released: "The
Yoper team is pleased to announce the public release of Yoper V2.
Combining the elements of raw speed with the renowned stability of
Linux, the V2 is the fastest out-of-the-box Linux system in the world.
Seamless updating and software integration provided by Apt/Synaptic.
Leading edge Technology enhancements using Linux kernel 2.6.7,
bolstered with performance patches, innovative pre-linking, win4lin
support, VMware support, VMware module integration, NVIDIA 3D support,
ReiserFS4, secure shell file system, CDROM supermount, and Ndiswrapper
for Windows binary driver integration." The full announcement. Download: yos-i686-2.0.0-9.iso (644MB).
DragonFly BSD 1.0
DragonFly BSD is out: "One
year after starting the project as a fork off the FreeBSD-4.x tree, the
DragonFly Team is pleased to announce our 1.0 release! We've made
remarkable progress in our first year. We have replaced nearly all of
the core threading, process, interrupt, and network infrastructure with
DragonFly native subsystems. We have our own MP-friendly slab
allocator, a Light Weight Kernel Threading (LWKT) system that is
separate from the dynamic userland scheduler, a fine-grained system
timer abstraction for kernel use...." Find the full announcement on dragonflybsd.org. Download: dfly-1.0REL.iso.gz (78.6MB); also available via BitTorrent. Update: Release updated to 1.0a (78.6MB) to fix a serious fdisk/slice issue with the installer. An xdelta patch is also available for people who have downloaded the original 1.0REL iso.
Puppy Linux 0.9.1
Puppy Linux 0.9.1 has been released. These are some excerpts from the release notes: Mozilla
has been upgraded to version 1.7, with Skipstone as the GUI front end.
Skipstone displays as version 0.8.4 however it is actually a hybrid of
0.8.4 and 0.9.3. The problem with Skipstone crashing when flipping
tab-views is now fixed, however there are still some minor problems
with tabbed-windows view. GTK applications in Puppy can now have
anti-aliased fonts, courtesy of the libgdkxft package, and this is
applied on a per-application basis. Font anti-aliasing is applied to
Skipstone, Dillo (web browser), Amaya (HTML editor) and Ted (word
processor). Download: cd-puppy.iso (49.0MB).
Turbolinux 10 F
The English language edition of Turbolinux 10 F is now available: Based
on Turbolinux 10 Desktop, Turbolinux 10 F... is the latest desktop
operating solution from Turbolinux that brings Multimedia to your
fingertips. 10 F extends functionality to support a variety of
streaming video, audio and multimedia content delivered over broadband.
10F... Fun, Fast, Future, Freedom, Flexible. Please find your 'F'.
Turbolinux 10 F is the first Linux distributions that brings Windows
and Real streaming video, DVD movies and Apple iPod support to Linux,
legally. To find out more, please read the original press release, product information page and data sheet (in PDF format). Turbolinux 10 F is available for purchase online (US$69.00).
Damn Small Linux 0.7.2
Damn Small Linux 0.7.2 has been released. From the changelog: "Added
myDSLgui, a click-and-run system for extensions; added Lua scripting
language and Lua sockets; replaced Scite with Beaver; replaced nvi with
vim; changed user from damnsmall to dsl (also took 'damn' out of the
boot process); upgraded busybox; simplified filetool.lst usage - always
edit at home; updated Firefox Flash plugin in Firefox download script;
actually shrunk the ISO by nearly 1MB from 0.7.1." Download: dsl-0.7.2.iso (46.9MB).
redWall Firewall 0.5.4c
This is a bug fix release of redWall Firewall 0.5.4: "A
'major' bug in MySQL (related to the environment on the CD) has been
fixed in this release (again ;-) ... please upgrade any 0.5.4 release
prior to 0.5.4c if you need MySQL support! Changelog: downgraded MySQL
to Version 4.0.18; modified mkisofs options which should fix reported
problems with booting the CD on certain PCs." Read more on the distribution's news page. Download: redwall-0.5.4c.iso.tar.gz (148MB).
Onebase Linux
Onebase
Linux 2004-r4 has been released. This is not to be confused with the
recent OnebaseGo 2.0 (Live CD) release. Two major new features are the
new Net-Installer and OLM 3. "Being a net-based
installer it provides high level of flexibility in selection of
packages and mode of installation. Also you directly install the latest
available packs from OL-apps." The full scoop on this release is available here.
It should be noted that the Net-Installer is only meant for new users
of Onebase. The new release is available for purchase or as a free download (106 MB).
OnebaseGo 2.0 (Live CD)
OnebaseGo (Live CD) version 2.0 has been released. "This
release comes with numerous package updates, improved EPS and Docking.
EPS - eXtended package store, a new feature which was introduced in 2.0
preview1 allows users to access additional software via this." The announcement for this release can be found here.
The developers encourage users to purchase the product from their store
in order to support the growth of this project, but it also available
as a free download (457 MB).
Development and unannounced releases
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| Web Site News |
Linux On The Road
Robert Storey fell ill for almost a full week, slowing things down at Distrowatch for several days. Nothing more will be said here about that hiatus, but geeks are advised to get more exercise. Pushing around a mouse while getting your brain fried by a CRT monitor (even though protected by an aluminium foil hat) is not healthiest pastime. If the foregoing describes your condition, now is a good time to wake up and smell the coffee (preferably decaffeinated).
Ladislav lent a (big) helping hand from an Internet cafe in Ferrara, Italy. Not surprisingly, all the machines in the Internet cafe were running Windows, but Ladislav managed to sneak in a Knoppix CD. The interesting thing is the staff didn't even notice the difference - perhaps we Linux enthusiasts can launch a stealth campaign, slipping in Knoppix disks where it's least expected. Anyway, Ladislav's next stop was Geneva, Switzerland, and plans call for hitting Austria next. We should be hearing interesting tidbits about Linux-on-the-road from Ladislav as he winds his way through Europe.
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of Linux distributions in the database: 315
- Number of BSD distributions in the database: 7
- Number of discontinued distributions: 32
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 84
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| Tips, Tricks and Hints |
GRUB To The Rescue
I received a brief but urgent message from a friend (named Burt) a few days ago. And it was this message that inspired the main topic of this week's Distrowatch Weekly News.
Burt is new to Linux and admits to being bewildered at times, but he's very enthusiastic and eager to learn. He's been downloading and testing various distros, still looking for the "perfect" one. Over the past few months he's probably had more Linux installs than hot meals, and he keeps coming back for more. I admire his perseverance.
One minor hazard of doing so many installs is that your MBR (master boot record) gets repeatedly overwritten by the installation programs. Some distros install LILO, some install GRUB. If you mess with the BSDs, you'll wind up with something else, and Windows will overwrite your MBR without even asking. This is exactly what happened to my friend Burt. He installed Mepis, liked it, then tried something else that rendered GRUB inaccessible. Now he wanted to know if there was a way to get it back.
Fortunately, there is. What you really need (and should prepare in advance) is a GRUB boot disk. Normally, this would be a floppy, and if you search around the Internet you are sure to find a bootable floppy image somewhere. However, it's my opinion that floppies are on their way out, and indeed I have a couple of laptops that don't even have a floppy drive. Obviously, a bootable GRUB cdrom would be more useful. You could make one yourself, but easier would be to download one, and I happen to know that you can find one here.
If you boot this GRUB CD, you should wind up with a plain text mode prompt that looks like this:
grub>
Admittedly, this does not look very informative, but if you've gotten this far then you're already half way towards rescuing your system. All you've got to do now is know what to type at the prompt - the big question is how to find out?
What you should have done in advance was to look into the GRUB configuration file on your hard disk, which is /boot/grub/menu.lst (and note it's "l" not "1" - they really should have named this file "menu.list" rather than "menu.lst", but they didn't ask me). Anyway, look through this file (and perhaps print it out on paper). You'll be looking for a section that resembles this:
title Knoppix 3.3
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 ro hdc=scsi hdd=scsi
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
savedefault
boot
What appears in your GRUB configuration file will no doubt be slightly different, but should be similiar. Now all you've got to do at the GRUB prompt is to manually type the above configuration information. However, you do NOT need to type the line that begins with "title", nor do you need to type "savedefault". You will need to type out the other lines. It is possible you won't have a line beginning with "initrd" (initial ram disk) - not every Linux distro makes use of this feature for booting. Assuming you typed everything correctly, after you type "boot" and hit enter, your machine should boot into Linux as it normally does.
Once you have booted and logged in as root, you can type this to restore your MBR:
grub-install /dev/hda
That should do it. Note that the above will only work if you have "grub-install" already installed, which is usually the case. Otherwise, you'll need to download and install it.
The foregoing was only meant as a brief introduction in repairing your GRUB install. A more thorough treatment of GRUB can be found in this excellent article from Linux Journal.
That's all for this week.
Robert Storey
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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 |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Toorox
Toorox was a Gentoo-based live DVD which boots into a KDE desktop using KNOPPIX hardware auto-detection and auto-configuration technologies. It was a useful tool for backing up data, browsing the Internet anonymously, or taking a first look at the capabilities of Linux. The live DVD can be installed to a hard disk with the help of a simple graphical installer.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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