 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 81, 3 January 2005 |
Happy New Year! You are reading the first issue of DistroWatch Weekly in 2005, in which we'll go back in history and reveal how DistroWatch started, then provide a few figures about visitors' interest over the past year, and introduce a handful of new distributions. Happy reading!
Content:
- Reflections: how DistroWatch came into existence
- Statistics: most visited distribution pages in 2004
- Released last week
- Upcoming releases: SUSE LINUX 9.2 FTP, Libranet GNU/Linux 3.0
- November/December donations: Kile, Tsunami Relief Operation
- New distribution additions: APODIO, CentOS, Freeduc-Sup, gNOX, Knopperdisk, Nitix Autonomic Linux
- New on the waiting list: ATmission, Garbure, Euskal Linux, JLiMe, Symphony OS
- Discontinued distribution: Ares Linux, Julex, uOS
Reflections: how DistroWatch came into existence
Before the end-of-year holidays, a reader asked about the beginnings of DistroWatch and how it all started - perhaps a good topic to reflect on at the end of the year. So here is the story...
I used to work for Linpus Technologies, a company producing a Linux distribution, among other products. One day, shortly before launching a major new release, my boss asked me if I could compile a list of features of all the main Linux distributions to see how we compare with the rest. This was done in order to find something exciting to put on the box as selling points.
An easy task, I thought; surely there are plenty such comparisons available on the Internet, right? Wrong. I spent several hours looking for data, but besides a few desperately out-of-date comparison charts, I was unable to find any usable information. In the end, I had to do it all myself - by visiting every main distribution's web site and extracting information about their products, prices, documentation, package versions, etc. I started putting all the data into an Excel spreadsheet (yes, MS Office was the standard document format, despite the fact that we were a Linux company!) until I had all I needed for Caldera, Corel, Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, Turbolinux, and of course Linpus. This was around May 2001 and those were generally considered the major distributions at the time.
Once the task was completed, the amount of data reached a fairly reasonable state in terms of interesting information. That was when I decided to share it with the Linux community and moved it from a spreadsheet into an HTML document. I registered for a web space account by one of the free providers and uploaded the page, then submitted the news about its existence to several Linux news sites.
The response was astonishing, to say the least. The site received over 7,000 visitors during the first day and my inbox was quickly filling up with email providing corrections, suggestions for improvements, and even words of praise and encouragement to continue maintaining the page. This was my first attempt at establishing web presence and it was a very simple page with a brief introduction and a table listing features and main packages for the above-mentioned distributions. I intended to keep the page up-to-date by including new data every time one of the distributions made a new release.
Some six months later the site was getting over 2,000 visitors a day. By that time, I had registered the distrowatch.com domain name, learnt a bit more about HTML and CSS, and created a page for every distribution, tracking their past releases and providing extra information and links to other related pages. I also added new distributions as I discovered them or as they were suggested by readers. I found it fascinating to learn about all the different distributions that existed on the market - I had Mandrake installed on my home computer, Debian on a second workstation at work and was administering several servers running various versions of Red Hat Linux. Every time a new distribution came out with a new release, I would install it to see how it differs from the ones I already had experience with. This distribution "testing" quickly became an addictive hobby.
That said, I was still mostly a Windows users, even several months after launching DistroWatch. I didn't have much choice at work and at home I find myself unable to leave the familiar world behind. One day, however, things changed. As a result of an embarrassing post on a mailing list, I finally decided to switch to Linux completely. I challenged myself to reboot into Mandrake Linux and stay in it for one month, doing everything I would normally do on the computer. Then I wrote about these experiences in The Linux Distribution Game (yes, the "friend of mine" that accepted my challenge was, in fact, I). That was a true story - after one continuous month in Linux I found out that I no longer needed Windows! In fact, when my hard disk crashed a few months later, I didn't bother to re-install Windows and my computer has been 100% Windows-free ever since.
Of course, things didn't go particularly smoothly at first. I remember the difficulties I had to go through while finding out how to do common tasks in GIMP (and other applications), e.g creating images with a transparent background. On Windows I had used Corel PHOTOPAINT for all the DistroWatch graphics needs, but I found GIMP to have a completely different implementation of many graphics tasks. Not more difficult, just different. Virtually every action in GIMP required that I first visited Google and found out how to perform that particular action! Sure, it wasn't entire without frustration, but every time I was tempted to reach for the reboot button, I remembered that I had paid some R2,000 (ZAR) for my copy of CorelDRAW, which was a good quarter of my after-tax monthly salary at the time. (This is not to say that CorelDRAW was not worth the money, but when your financial resources are limited, a large expense like that means that your other "wants" have to be postponed. With Free Software, this is no longer the case.)
The Linux Distribution Game article brought a bit of trouble, however. Because the editors at Slashdot found it worth a post on their web site, I was quickly reminded about the realities of the Internet when my free hosting service was abruptly terminated (I used up my monthly bandwidth quota in just a few hours after the article was linked from Slashdot!). Luckily, the power of the Linux community proved too strong and I quickly received an offer from the developers of Linux From Scratch to host DistroWatch on their server. This was a great offer - for the first time I had access to scripting languages, so it was time to turn the site from static HTML into dynamic pages with PHP.
This was around June 2002, which coincided with my decision to leave Linpus Technologies. I spent three months at home, learning PHP and rewriting the site. Then, due to growing financial pressures, I had to make a decision between finding a new job and keeping the web site as a hobby, or turning DistroWatch into a business. The second option sounded considerably more appealing and I decided to give it a go. It was tough at first (relying on readers' donations, generous as some of you were, is NOT a sustainable business model), so I started accepting advertising and devised a "premium" service for interested readers (which did not prove very popular and was later abandoned). Luckily, the number of visitors kept increasing and so did advertising inquiries which eventually reached sustainable levels. I was able continue working on the site full time.
Nowadays, the site is visited by over 60,000 readers a day, which makes DistroWatch one of the top 10 Linux/BSD news sites on the Internet. There are several reasons for the site's increasing popularity. Firstly, I try to be fast with publishing news - unlike many other new sites, I don't wait until a story hits Slashdot or until somebody submits the news; instead I do my best to get the news out to you as soon as it happens. Secondly, the news stories are sufficiently varied; from the biggest and most popular distributions to the smallest and virtually unknown projects developed in remote corners of the world (learning languages is one of my hobbies) - they all receive equal treatment. There are too many news sites that just publish press releases by Red Hat or Novell and wonder why nobody bookmarks their sites. I believe that these two characteristics - the speed of updates and uniqueness of news items - are the prime reasons why visitors keep coming. (OSNews is one of the few other web sites that has a similar attitude and philosophy towards publishing news, which is what makes it such a great site to visit.)
But of course, there is a brand new year ahead of us and you are not going to be disappointed - together with regular contributors, we will continue bringing you up-to-date and interesting news, writing DistroWatch Weekly and updating all distribution pages with new releases. I also hope to find time for creating a proper database of all distributions with easy search capabilities, and improve the internationalisation infrastructure so that information is readily available to all readers, even those who don't understand English! As always, your suggestions for improvements are most welcome!
Have a great 2005!
* * * * *
Statistics: most visited distribution pages in 2004
With the year 2004 behind us, here is a brief statistical info about the popularity of distribution-specific pages on DistroWatch. For the third year in a row, the Mandrakelinux page was the most visited one, with an average of 1,457 visits from unique IP addresses per day. It was followed by Fedora (1,202 visits), KNOPPIX (910 visits), SUSE (858 visits) and Debian (832 visits). MEPIS, PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu were the biggest movers - MEPIS claimed the overall 6th spot in the ranking, while Ubuntu managed to climb to number 13, despite the fact that it was only listed on DistroWatch for less than 4 months of the year. Lycoris was the biggest loser of the year, with Linspire and Yoper also down in the ranking.
The absolute largest number of visitors on any distribution page was recorded by the Fedora page on November 9, 2004 (the day after the release of Fedora Core 3) - 4,201 unique IPs (5,615 page hits), followed by the Fedora page on May 18, 2004 (the day of the Fedora Core 2 release) - 4,138 unique IPs (6,172 page hits) and by the Fedora page again on November 8, 2004 - 4,033 unique IPs (5,703 page hits). The Slackware page recorded 3,551 visits from unique IP addresses on the day of the Slackware 10.0 release (4,860 page hits). No other distribution recorded more than 3,000 visits from unique IP addresses on any single day. As for the main DistroWatch page, the largest number of visitors was recorded on September 27, 2004 - 78,214 visitors loaded the main page on that day.
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| Released During Last 2 Weeks |
Luit Linux 0.4
Luit Linux is a mini live CD with XFce 4, based on Damn Small Linux. A new version has been announced: "Latest release: v 0.4. The main feature of this new distribution is its modularity. Additional CDs can be mounted to get additional packages at any time when needed, from the desktop menu, or through a command prompt. All can be combined to make a mini CD version." Visit the distribution's home page to read the release announcement and feature list.
Damn Small Linux 0.9.1
Damn Small Linux 0.9.1 has been released, with the following changes "Replaced ascd and enjoympeg with xmms; added news feed section for xmms; beaver replaces minimum profit editor; fluxter replaces bbpager for better integration; updated firefox default mime types; removed smbtree, isoinfo, readcd; theme intelligent Fluxter replaced bbpager; for more information read the details in the screenshot." Here is the full changelog.
Freeduc-Sup 1.1
Freeduc-Sup is a French live CD (with a graphical hard disk installer) based on Morphix and designed for use in education (it includes a comprehensive Linux administration book in HTMLformat). Version 1.1 was released yesterday and is available in two editions - "base" and "informatique", the latter of which includes developer tools, including programming languages (C, C++, PHP, Perl, Python, XML) and development environments (Kdevelop, Quanta, Qt Designer). Read the distribution's news page (in French) for more information, or visit the screenshots page to see Freeduc-Sup in action.
K12LTSP Linux 4.2.0
The final release of K12LTSP Linux 4.2.0 is now available: "Still looking for the perfect Christmas gift for the Spouse? K12LTSP 4.2.0 is now available for all of your gift-giving needs! It slices, it dices. And when you are finished, it makes great drink coasters! The ultimate stocking-stuffer! Hurry while supplies last!" From the release notes: "K12LTSP 4.2.0 is based on Fedora Core 3. The installer media check has been turned off by default. This check does not work if the ISO were burned on a 2.6.x kernel without being 'padded'...." Here is the announcement, inclusive of the release notes and download links.
LBA-Linux R2
A new stable release of LBA-Linux (formerly known as SOT Linux and Best Linux) is out: "The Linux Business Alliance, an association of companies dedicated to producing usable, open,and legally safe software has released the second version of its LBA-Linux operating system. The new version, LBA-Linux R2, offers many completely new features, including integrated office software and encrypted directories for each user. The R2 release also incorporates all security updates released since the first LBA-Linux distribution was published in May 2004." Read the press release for further details.
LBA-Linux R2 - a Fedora-based distribution from Finland
(full image size: 770kB)
Vidalinux Desktop OS 1.1
A new release of the Gentoo-based Vidalinux Desktop OS is now available for download: "For all you VLOS fans here is the new version of Vidalinux Desktop OS with lots of changes, fixes, updates, new theme and artwork make this release even better than 1.0." Read the full release notes for detailed information about all the changes since version 1.0.
AUSTRUMI 0.9.2
This is a new release of AUSTRUMI, a Slackware-based business card-size live CD with fvwm'95 as its desktop environment. What's new? "Added Skype - free Internet telephony; added PHP support; added LNF forum (for education); removed beaver, added tea; removed gkdial, added wvdial; updated Ugunsvarti, AbiWord and Opera; removed MinGV developer studio; added same 1GB ethernet card support; fixed bugs." Visit the distribution's home page to read the changelog and other information about AUSTRUMI.
Puppy Linux 0.9.8
A new release of Puppy Linux is here. From the release notes: "Puppy now has PlanMaker Free Edition - Excel compatible spreadsheet editor. Although this is closed-source, it is free, no usage restrictions and no embedded advertisements. There is a new accounting program called Grisbi. This is excellent for personal finance and would suit many organisations. Grisbi is able to import GnuCash files. There is a new presentation design program called Impress, similar in concept to PowerPoint. Note that PowerPoint presentations can be indirectly imported into Impress by exporting them from PowerPoint in Postscript format...."
ASP Linux 10
ASP Linux 10, code name "Karelia", has been released. ASP Linux is a Russian distribution based on Fedora Core. The latest release has been developed with three main characteristics in mind - it should be immediately usable out of the box, most of system configuration should be achieved via a graphical interface, and it should support a wide range of multimedia formats, including DVD, mpeg4 and mp3 playback. It has been built on top of a Linux kernel 2.6.9, and it includes GNOME 2.8.1, KDE 3.3.1, OpenOffice.org 1.1.2, Firefox 1.0, Novell Evolution 2.0.2, and many other applications. More details are available in the press release (in Russian).
ASP Linux 10 - a Fedora-based distribution from Russia
(full image size: 1,273kB)
Buffalo Linux 1.6.0
Buffalo Linux 1.6.0 has been released: "Buffalo Version 1.6.0 contains numerous updates -- including the new kernel 2.6.10. Kernel 2.6.8.1 is still available at install time due to issues with some USB features in 2.6.9/2.6.10. Included are Sylpheed 1.0.0, IceWM 1.2.18, OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 and updates to KDE 3.3.2 on the extras CD2. Also available on the main FTP site are additional packages in directory 'other', for example 'libmng' is needed by KDE and was left off CD2 by mistake. Version 1.6.1 is anticipated shortly as a bug fix to this version. It will be available as an auto-update from 1.6.0. No auto-update is provided to 1.6.0 due to the very large size of the changes." Read the release announcement on the distribution's main page.
Knopperdisk 0.2.0
For all fans of Linux distributions designed for USB pen drives, here is a new toy called Knopperdisk, based on Gentoo Linux. Version 0.2.0 was released yesterday: "Finally, a new release with a lot of improvements. A snapshot of some of them: kernel 2.6.10; expanded the list of supported hardware; syslinux 2.11 for booting; using SquashFS for the root file system image instead of cloop, which actually results in a smaller image while there's more data on it; added CVS software; a lot of upgraded software (udev, hotplugging, coreutils and more); no more nasty errors while shutting down and rebooting! All this made me decide to make this release the final 0.2.0." Read the announcement on the project's news page.
gnuLinEx 2004r1
A revised release of gnuLinEx 2004 is now available. The principal new features include support for serial ATA drives, support for installation on USB hard disks, and correction of bugs reported since the release of version 2004 in July. Most packages have been upgraded to their current stable version; this includes Firefox 1.0 with automatic installations of various plugins, Evolution 2.0, GNOME 2.8, Firestarter and other applications. Newly included is the K3B CD/DVD burning utility. Many hardware drivers have been added to the kernel. The gnuLinEx repository now includes over 10,000 packages from Debian Sarge for trouble-free installation of extra applications. Read the full release announcement (in Spanish) for further details.
GeeXboX 0.98.5
A new release of GeeXboX, a Linux-based media player, is out: "Ho ho ho ... here comes a new GeeXboX release. As a tradition, many free software projects release on Christmas and so do we (with a little bit delay, just to be original :-). So, here's our gift to you to end 2004: GeeXboX 0.98.5. The 0.99 release will come with a completely new interface which is not yet completely finished. But 4 months have past since the last release and much work has been done. You probably won't notice any big differences in terms of functionality by comparison to the old 0.98 release. The reason for it is quite simple: we did a major rewrite of our code, build toolkit and all major packages and there were so many deep changes that we needed to make a new release before adding the new interface." Here is the full announcement.
Feather Linux 0.7.1
The first release of 2005 belongs to the Feather Linux project, which has just announced version 0.7.1. From the changelog: "Included aterm, a terminal supporting transparency and other features; added the Ruby scripting language; added rcrack (a hash cracker), sil (a banner grabber), nbtstat and dsniff; added giFTcurs; added cdparanoia; added elinks, a text-only browser; updated many system-based packages to those from Knoppix 3.7; added option to feather-hdinstall to add custom options on the LILO append line; added a new soundcard configuration tool if the other fails, which can be found in Tools -> Scripts; made some small changes to rm-dpkg; fixed Opera, Java and Flash scripts...."
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r4
The 4th revision of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 has been released: "This is the fourth update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (codename 'woody') which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with a few corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update. Please note that this update does not produce a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 but only adds a few updated packages to it. There is no need to throw away 3.0 CDs but only to update againstftp.debian.org after an installation, in order to incorporate those late changes. Upgrading to this revision online is usually done by pointing the 'apt' package tool to one of Debian's many FTP or HTTP mirrors. A comprehensive list of mirrors is available here." Read the announcement for further details.
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
SUSE LINUX 9.2 FTP Edition
A new message on the SUSE FTP server claims that SUSE LINUX 9.2 will be made available for network installation on January 10: "Update: Expect 9.2-FTP on January 10 2005." Read here for more information.
Libranet GNU/Linux 3.0
According to the latest issue of Libranet Newsletter, published on December 29, Libranet 3.0 is now in beta testing: "Good news. Libranet 3.0 beta testing is now underway. The beta testers are testing the new installer and after the new year will be testing the full release. So far it's looking good!" The newsletter did not provide any other details about the product or the expected release date.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Web Site News |
November/December donations: Kile, Tsunami Relief Operation
Continuing with our donations programme, the delayed November 2004 donation goes to Kile KDE LaTeX Editor, while the December 2004 donation will go to the victims of the recent Tsunami disaster through UNICEF's Tsunami relief operation. Seeing the tragedy on TV, it was hard not to contribute to those who lost everything due to the nature's extremely cruel joke. Originally, the Kile project was meant to receive US$180, but since it only accepts donations in certain denominations, we had no choice but donate US$100 and move the remaining US$80 to December. Therefore UNICEF's Tsunami relief operation received a total of US$340. As always, the donation programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch and LinuxCD.org, which contributes US$50 every month. LinuxCD.org is an online store selling low-cost Linux/BSD CDs - they have the largest selection, inclusive of all the latest releases, and they offer the lowest prices. Next time you need to order your favourite Linux or BSD CDs, get them from LinuxCD.org.
Here are the PayPal receipts for our donations:
This email confirms that you have paid OSDN / VA Software $100.00 USD using PayPal.
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Payment Details:
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Transaction ID: 87Y45907KK547412L
Total: $100.00 USD
Item Title: Donation
Quantity: 1
Invoice ID: 224332
Message: This is a donation by DistroWatch.com to the Kile project.
OSDN / VA Software
Contact E-Mail: staff at sourceforge.net
This email confirms that you have paid Tsunami Relief $340.00 USD using PayPal.
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Payment Details:
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Transaction ID: 2CS50509YC919753G
Total: $340.00 USD
Item Title: Tsunami Relief Effort
Quantity: 1
Business: Tsunami Relief
Contact E-Mail: tsunamirelief at paypal.com
This is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme:
New distribution addition
New on the waiting list
- ATmission. ATmission is a live Linux CD. The main advantage of ATmission compared to other live Linux CDs is its flexibility.
- Euskal Linux. Euskal Linux is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Webalianza in the Basque autonomous region of Spain.
- Garbure. Garbure is a collection of dedicated distributions. Each distribution provides you with carefully selected tools for a specific target domain, and is completed with examples and documentation. The set of distributions included in Garbure forms an entity, but each distribution works also on its own. They complement each other like tools in a toolbox or volumes of an encyclopedia. Tools, documentation and examples are chosen, tested and if necessary created by people active in the target domain. These distributions are intended to be used as work station. The installation and distribution media is the LiveCD, making it also useful for demonstration purposes, promotion, occasional usage or rescue system. Meta-package installation is planned.
- JLiMe. JLime (Jornada Linux Mobility Edition) is a project that focuses on running Linux on the HP Jornada 680/690 and 620LX/660LX series handheld PC. The Jornada 680/690 is a Windows CE-based device equipped with a 133MHz Hitachi SH3 processor. It has a laptop-like keyboard, a relatively large screen and excellent battery capacity, which makes it an ideal device for coding on the road and wireless internet access, much more than any traditional PDA. The 620LX/660LX is a similar device, the differences being a 75MHz SH3 processor instead of 133MHz and a softtouch keyboard instead of the laptop-like keyboard on the 680/690. Running Linux as the main operating system on your Jornada 680/690 or 620LX/660LX will give you a powerful system with tons of tools, programming languages and applications.
- Symphony OS. Symphony is a distribution of GNU/Linux based on the Debian GNU/Linux and KNOPPIX operating systems. Symphony will do things a bit differently than other Linux operating systems; making it easier to use and more intuitive than most existing distributions.
Discontinued distributions
- A little clean-up over the holidays meant that distributions whose web pages were not longer accessible were re-classified as "discontinued" and placed on discontinued distributions page. These include Ares Linux (an unsuccessful attempt at some continuity to the abandoned JAMD Linux), Julex, a recently launched Australian live CD, and uOS - The Micro Operating System (a spin-off of the discontinued TelemetryBox project).
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of Linux distributions in the database: 370
- Number of BSD distributions in the database: 9
- Number of discontinued distributions: 48
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 83
That's all for today, see you all next week!
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Omarine
Omarine was a Linux-based operating system for servers. It can also be used for desktops with the GNOME or KDE Plasma option right at the login screen without any additional configuration. Omarine was originally based on Slackware Linux, but was now independently developed. It uses the RPM package management software.
Status: Discontinued
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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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