 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 198, 16 April 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The new releases from CentOS and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) projects were in the centre of attention at many Linux news sites during the past week. CentOS 5, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, is a free enterprise-class distribution with 5-year security support - perfect for any organisation with long-term operating system plans, while the first public release of OLPC -- especially its "Sugar" user interface -- also aroused much curiosity among Linux users. In the news section: Ubuntu "Feisty" gets delayed over several release-critical bugs, Linux Mint proves its growing popularity with incredible download figures, and FreeBSD gets a new file system - the excellent ZFS from Sun Microsystems. Finally, don't miss the fourth part of our overview of top ten Linux distributions covering KNOPPIX and Slackware Linux. Happy reading!
Content:
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| Overview |
Overview of Top Ten Distributions (Part 4)
The fourth part of our overview of Top Ten Distributions looks at KNOPPIX - a popular, Debian-based live CD, and Slackware Linux - one of the cleanest and most stable operating systems on the market.
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 The first public release of KNOPPIX was made in early 2003. This event was quickly followed by an astonishing number of highly positive reviews in the Linux media; this was the first Linux live CD that required no manual configuration. The KNOPPIX CD was meant to be placed in the CD-ROM drive and a few minutes after boot, the computer would run a full-featured, graphical Linux operating system with thousands of applications - all without the need to install anything on the computer's hard disk. Although KNOPPIX certainly wasn't the first Linux live CD, its creator, Klaus Knopper, went further than any other developer before him in scripting a hardware auto-detection and auto-configuration routine that put similar scripts produced by commercial Linux companies to shame.
The Debian-based KNOPPIX became such a huge success that many Linux users found it an indispensable and portable tool for a variety of tasks. It could be used to recover files and data from hard disks, to demonstrate the capabilities of Linux to new users, to test Linux hardware compatibility of laptops and desktop computers before purchase, or to boot it in Internet Cafés and use it as a full-blown Linux operating system for every-day tasks. In fact, it became such a popular tool that within a short period of time dozens of similar projects sprouted all over the Internet, using Klaus Knopper's hardware auto-detection scripts and developing KNOPPIX-based variants ranging from full desktop systems to highly specialised forensics, testing and recovery tasks.
While KNOPPIX can be considered beginner-friendly in terms of its hands-off auto-configuration, it also includes many advanced features better suited for more technical users. Especially the recent DVD editions of the product came with a large number of software packages, including all popular desktops and many server applications pulled from Debian's unstable and testing archives. This increase in software numbers brought some problems, however; KNOPPIX has become slow (especially the DVD edition), buggy (Klaus Knopper does not seem to believe in public beta testing) and messy (in terms of menu arrangements on the different desktop systems). There is no release planning, but new KNOPPIX versions appear roughly twice a year, usually shortly after major Linux exhibitions in Germany, where new KNOPPIX versions are first unveiled to the public. It has lost some of its originally glory due to the fact that most major Linux distribution now also offer live CD/DVD editions of their product.
- Pros: Unparalleled hardware auto-detection and auto-configuration; portable operating system that can be used for rescue, demonstration and testing tasks; provides a hard-disk installation script
- Cons: Recent releases somewhat buggy; lack of polish and unification of menus across the different desktop environments; slow when run from DVD
- Software package management: Advanced Package Tool (APT) using DEB packages
- Available editions: Live CD and Live DVD editions for 32-bit (i386) processors
- Suggested Debian/KNOPPIX-based alternatives: Damn Small Linux, sidux, Xandros Desktop, Elive, Dreamlinux, Parsix GNU/Linux, grml
KNOPPIX 5.1.1
(full image size: 1,224kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 Slackware Linux, created by Patrick Volkerding in 1992, is the oldest surviving Linux distribution. Forked from the now-discontinued SLS project, Slackware 1.0 came on 24 floppy disks and was built on top of Linux kernel version 0.99pl11-alpha. It quickly became the most popular Linux distribution, with some estimates putting its market share to as much as 80% of all Linux installations in 1995. Its popularity decreased dramatically with the arrival of Red Hat Linux and other, more user-friendly distributions, but Slackware Linux still remains a much-appreciated operating system among the more technically-oriented system administrators and desktop users.
Slackware Linux is a highly technical, clean distribution, with only a very limited number of custom utilities. It uses a simple, text-based system installer and a comparatively primitive package management system that does not resolve software dependencies. As a result, Slackware is considered one of the cleanest and least buggy distributions available today - the lack of Slackware-specific enhancements reduces the likelihood of new bugs being introduced into the system. All configuration is done by editing text files. There is a saying in the Linux community that if you learn Red Hat, you'll know Red Hat, but if you learn Slackware, you'll know Linux. This is particularly true today when many other Linux distributions keep developing heavily customised products to meet the needs of less technical Linux users.
While this philosophy of simplicity has its fans, the fact is that in today's world, Slackware Linux is increasingly becoming a "core system" upon which new, custom solutions are built, rather than a complete distribution with a wide variety of supported software. The only exception is the server market, where Slackware remains popular, though even here, the distribution's complex upgrade procedure and lack of officially supported automated tools for security updates makes it increasingly uncompetitive. Slackware's conservative attitude towards the system's base components (the latest stable Slackware release still defaults to an older 2.4 kernel) means that it requires much manual post-installation work before it can be tuned into a modern desktop system.
- Pros: Highly stable, clean and bug-free, strong adherence to UNIX principles.
- Cons: Limited number of officially supported applications; conservative in terms of base package selection; complex upgrade procedure; no official 64-bit edition
- Software package management: "pkgtools" using TGZ (TAR.GZ) packages
- Available editions: Installation CDs and DVD for 32-bit (i486) processors
- Suggested Slackware-based alternatives: Zenwalk Linux (desktop), VectorLinux (desktop), SLAX (live CD), Slamd64 Linux (64-bit), Bluewhite64 Linux (64-bit), Wolvix (desktop, live CD), GoblinX (desktop, live CD)
Slackware Linux 11.0
(full image size: 127kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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As always, if you have any suggestions, corrections or additions to the above overviews, please post them in the forum.
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| Miscellaneous News |
CentOS 5.0, OLPC, Linux Mint download statistics, Ubuntu "Feisty" delays, FreeBSD ZFS integration, interview with the "distro guy"
 The most interesting release of the past week was undoubtedly the one delivered by the CentOS development team. CentOS 5.0, based on the recently released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, is the second project (after StartCom Enterprise Linux) that has successfully rebuilt Red Hat's latest enterprise distribution into an installable and fully-supported Red Hat clone. Although CentOS has never been able to break into the DistroWatch's top ten list, there is little doubt that this is a very popular distribution - especially on servers and business desktops. And its most important feature? Besides virtualisation, IPV6 support and other enterprise-level characteristics inherited from its famous parent, the most important one is its long-term support - CentOS 5.0 will be supported with security and bug-fix updates until at least March 2012. For more information about CentOS please visit the project's web site at CentOS.org.
The CentOS 5.0 desktop
(full image size: 117kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 Another project that attracted much attention last week was the OLPC live CD. As many readers will know, OLPC, or One Laptop Per Child, is a Red Hat-sponsored initiative to develop a US$100 laptop designed for children in developing countries. Given the low-cost components of the laptop, Red Hat is also designing a heavily customised, light-weight operating system based on Fedora, but with a unique user interface called Sugar (see this review for some first impressions and screenshots). The first live CD image demonstrating the concepts of the user interface appeared on Red Hat's servers last week and the interest in it -- 122,000 download attempts were made within the first few days -- surprised the developers. Bear in mind that this is an early prototype designed for developers to demonstrate the product, so it will still undergo substantial changes before it is declared ready for deployment on the laptop.
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 Speaking about downloads, here is an interesting piece of statistics found in the latest Linux Mint weekly newsletter: "Seven mirrors were made available for [Linux Mint 2.2] Bianca. Three of them counted 592,950 downloads." Linux Mint has been climbing rather dramatically on the DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking statistics and the download figures -- nearly 600,000 (!) downloads recorded by just three of the seven available mirrors -- confirm the simple truth: many Linux users are looking for a distribution that works out of the box, without any post-install installation of device drivers, multimedia codecs and browser plugins. Linux Mint has delivered exactly that. And although the advocates of Free Software will not be pleased by this fact, there is little doubt that many computer users are attracted to Linux not because it offers the freedom to modify the source code, but because it's good, it's fun, and it's free of cost.
* * * * *
 The much awaited Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" release candidate failed to show up last week - due to several serious bugs: "The Ubuntu 7.04 release candidate has been delayed due to bugs discovered during validation testing, specifically problems with certain ATA chipsets and problems with the connection status displayed by the network-manager panel applet. There is no updated ETA yet, but the core development team is actively working on the problems and expects it to be a matter of days." The project expects the final release to take place later this week as scheduled, although a slight delay is still a possibility.
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 Here is something of interest to the users of the FreeBSD operating system. As announced by Pawel Jakub Dawidek on the FreeBSD current mailing list, the ZFS file system, originally developed by Sun Microsystems, has been integrated into FreeBSD: "I'm happy to inform that the ZFS file system is now part of the FreeBSD operating system. ZFS is available in the HEAD branch and will be available in FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE as an experimental feature. Currently ZFS is only compiled as kernel module and is only available for i386 architecture. AMD64 should be available very soon, the other architectures will come later, as we implement needed atomic operations." And while on the subject of the BSD operating systems, the OpenBSD project has released the song that will accompany the upcoming release of OpenBSD 4.1. It is entitled Puffy Baba and the 40 Vendors.
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Packt Publishing has published an interview with yours truly, the founder and maintainer of DistroWatch.com: "There's no dearth of Linux distributions. This isn't the first time I've said this. Neither will it be the last. But why the chaos? Why are there more failed distributions than successful ones? Ask the distro guy, Ladislav Bodnar, maintainer of DistroWatch.com. Excuse me if the above sounds like those 15-second commercials during super bowl. As a Linux journalist, DistroWatch is an important tool of my trade. For over half a decade the website has been keeping track of every distribution related activity. And like the many distros it lists, DistroWatch is a one-man show. From its humble beginnings, Bodnar has turned DistroWatch into the most comprehensive, and respected, directory of Linux distributions, it is today." Read more in Meet the Distro Guy.
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| Released Last Week |
GoblinX 2.0 "Mini"
The GoblinX project has announced the release of GoblinX 2.0 "Mini" edition: "GoblinX Mini 2.0.0 is released. The GoblinX Mini Edition is the son of GoblinX and contains only the Xfce windows manager and GTK+-based applications. This release follows Premium 2007.1 edition and starts the second generation of the distribution. All new features and upgrades prepared for the Premium edition are included, including a new functional Magic Center which works with Xfce and all graphical user interfaces." Please visit the distribution's news page to read the release announcement.
Foresight Linux 1.2
Ken VanDine has announced the release of Foresight Linux 1.2, an rPath-based distribution featuring the very latest GNOME desktop technologies: "We are pleased to announce the latest stable release, Foresight Linux 1.2. It includes the latest 2.18.1 GNOME desktop. Highlights from Release 1.2: GNOME 2.18.1; Linux kernel 2.6.20.6; better wireless driver and overall hardware support; fixes for some digital cameras and scanners to allow importing and scanning of images; added Japanese support (fonts and keyboards); a new GNOME display manager theme; new Epiphany extensions: Greasemonkey, Tab States and Push Scroll; OpenOffice.org 2.2; Thunderbird 2 RC1." Visit the distribution's news page to read the complete release announcement.
CentOS 5.0
Karanbir Singh has announced the immediate availability of CentOS 5.0, a Linux distribution built by recompiling source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS 5 for the i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 5 is based on the upstream release 5, and includes packages from all variants including Server and Client. All upstream repositories have been combined into one, to make it easier for end users to work with. Major changes in CentOS 5 compared to CentOS 4 include: updated software versions; better desktop support with Compiz and AIGLX; virtualization provided by the Xen hypervisor with Virtual Machine Manager and libvirt; Sabayon to simplify the construction of user profiles." See the release announcement and release notes for more information.
Topologilinux 6.1.0
Topologilinux, a project developing a Slackware-based Linux distribution that can be installed and run from within Windows (as well as installed on a separate partition), has announced an updated release, version 6.1.0: "Topologilinux has now released version 6.1.0. This new version contains about 6 GB of software, including Linux kernel 2.6.17.13, GNOME 2.16.3, KDE 3.5.4, X.Org 6.9.0, OpenOffice.org 2.1, GCC, Xfce, coLinux 0.6.4, 3D games, ALSA sound system and many other applications. This version should be working on Windows Vista. Another great thing is that you can also run it in 'real' Linux mode, like the traditional distributions. Topologilinux is very easy to install and does not require any partitioning at all." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement.
GParted LiveCD 0.3.4-6
GParted LiveCD has been updated to version 0.3.4-6: "GParted LiveCD 0.3.4-6 has been released. Changes: we now use Squashfs LZMA witch allows best compression and reduces the file size to 45 MB; upgrade to X.Org 7.2 offers better support and auto-detection for video and resolution, but old mkxf86config is still available as an option in GRUB, if needed; the new 'Macbook' option fixes the double keystroke issue with Mac; two new scripts are born to help users to build GParted LiveUSB - first one can be used to mount a USB key and also offers the possibility to run the second one, which copies needed files to the freshly attached USB stick and apply syslinux to make it bootable; kernel has been updated to 2.6.20.6." Read the rest of the changelog for further details.
Guadalinex 4
A new major version of Guadalinex, an Ubuntu-based distribution developed by the regional government of Andalucía in Spain, has been released. Guadalinex is a general-purpose operating system for the desktop; the latest version uses the Linux kernel 2.6.17 and includes X.Org 7.1, GNOME 2.16, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, Firefox 2.0 and other popular open source applications for the home and office. Please read the release announcement (in Spanish) for further information.
The Guadalinex 4 desktop
(full image size: 277kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Finnix 89.1
Ryan Finnie has announced the release of Finnix 89.1, a small, Debian-based Linux distribution for system administrators: "Finnix is a small, self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution for system administrators, based on Debian testing. Today marks the release of version 89.1 for the x86/AMD64, PowerPC, and UML/Xen platforms. Finnix 89.1 is a maintenance and bug-fix release. The base system has been dist-upgraded to Debian's 2007-04-03, the day 'etch' was marked stable. The 'testcd' boot option has been fixed on the PowerPC platform. The ipcalc package has been added, and the finnix-3ware-install package has been upgraded to 9.4.1. SSH agent is now started at boot-time, and is shared among all virtual terminals." Please see the release announcement and release notes for further details.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon"
Mark Shuttleworth has announced the release dates for the next stable release of Ubuntu - version 7.10 and code name "Gutsy Gibbon": "Folks, allow me to introduce the Gutsy Gibbon, who will be succeeding the Feisty Fawn as the focus of our development love in a few short weeks, for release in October 2007." The development cycle for "Gutsy Gibbon" will start with an alpha release (called "Tribe CD") in early June and it will conclude with the final release on 18 October 2007. For a detailed breakdown of the release process please visit the Gutsy Release Schedule page.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Direct links to DVD images
Due to several requests by distribution release managers and mirror site maintainers, DistroWatch will no longer provide direct links to large DVD images in its front-page release announcements. The ever-growing interest in Linux has resulted in refusal of many FTP mirrors to carry large DVD images of popular distributions in fear that their networks get saturated by thousands of connections and download attempts. Similarly, some distributions (e.g. openSUSE) do not provide direct downloads of DVD images, relying on the BitTorrent protocol to distribute the large files instead. In order to relieve these free mirror services from bandwidth pressures, DistroWatch will from now on link to BitTorrent files (wherever available), rather than DVD images.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
- OLPC. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is an initiative to build a low-cost laptop computer with a pre-installed operating system and applications designed for children in developing countries. The operating system is a Linux-based solution, a heavily customised edition of Fedora Core with a special graphical user interface called Sugar. Among applications, the system includes a web browser built on Xulrunner, a simple document viewer based on Evince; the AbiWord word processor, an RSS reader, email, chat and VOIP clients, a multimedia authoring and playback environment, a music composition toolkit, graphics toolkits, games, a shell, and a debugger.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Jihbed. Jihbed is a desktop-oriented live CD based on NetBSD. It is built from the latest NetBSD sources (HEAD); the third-party software packages provided on the CD are the latest versions, including experimental packages from wip-pkgsrc.
- Lemix. Lemix is a new Ubuntu-based distribution developed by a group of university students in Rabat, Morocco. Compared to Ubuntu, Lemix offers extra scientific and engineering applications, pre-configured multimedia codecs, and support for USB DSL modems in common use in Morocco. The project's web site is in French only, but the distribution offers out-of-the-box support for three languages: Arabic, English and French.
Lemix, a new Ubuntu-based distribution from Morocco
(full image size: 1,926kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- sllcd. slccd is GeeXboX-based Linux distribution intended for file servers. The project's primary goal is to provide an easy-to-install operating system for sharing data on a mixed local network.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes our latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 23 April 2007. Until then,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
BeleniX
BeleniX was a UNIX distribution built from the OpenSolaris source base. It includes all the features of OpenSolaris, but also adds a whole variety of open source packages. It was a live CD that can also be installed to a hard disk. BeleniX was free to use, modify and distribute.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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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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