 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 209, 2 July 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 27th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The release of the General Public Licence version 3 and the new Linux edition of Google Desktop were the primary generators of headlines on most Linux news sites during the past week. In contrast, all was quiet on the distribution development front, with only Dreamlinux, Scientific Linux and a few minor projects announcing new stable releases. But don't despair; this week's DistroWatch Weekly is still packed with interesting topics, including an interview with Clement Lefebvre from Linux Mint, a rebuttal by John Murga from the Puppy Linux forums, and information about some other interesting news of the week, such as the new PC-BSD LiveCD and the latest version of the GNU/Linux distro timeline. And if you are looking for something to test and play with during the slow months of July and August, don't miss the new distributions section which presents no fewer than 6 (six!) new distro projects that were submitted to DistroWatch last week. Happy reading!
Content:
- Interview: Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint
- Feedback: One year with Puppy Linux
- News: GPL 3, Google Desktop, GNU/Linux distro timeline, YaSTRS for openSUSE, PC-BSD LiveCD, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.2
- Released last week: Dreamlinux 2.2 "Multimedia GL", SoL 25.00
- Upcoming releases: Fluxbuntu "Gutsy Gibbon"
- Donations: KTorrent receives US$400
- New distributions: Baltix GNU/Linux, Draco GNU/Linux, FrogLinux, pclosBE, TinyME, UW-Linux
- Reader comments
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Featured Story |
Interview with Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint
  Linux Mint is one of the surprise packages of the past year. Originally launched as a variant of Ubuntu with integrated media codecs, it has now developed into one of the most user-friendly distributions on the market - complete with a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, a web-based package installation interface, and a number of different editions. Perhaps most importantly, this is one project where the developers and users are in constant interaction, resulting in dramatic, user-driven improvements with every new release.
DistroWatch has spoken to the founder and lead developer of Linux Mint, Clement Lefebvre, about the history of the distribution, new features in the upcoming release, and other topics of interest.
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DW: Clement, thank you very much for your time. All I know about you is that you are French, that you live in Ireland, and that you maintain Linux Mint. Anything else you'd like to add as an introduction? How old are you? What do you do for living?
CL: Hi Ladislav, thanks for having me on DistroWatch Weekly. I'm 29 years old, born in France and living in Ireland. I work as a Java developer for a telecommunication company.
DW: Linux Mint has been a resounding success. According to the DistroWatch web logs, 3.3% of Linux-using visitors browse this site with Mint, which makes it the 6th most popular Linux distribution among the DistroWatch visitors (behind Ubuntu, Debian, PCLinuxOS, Fedora and openSUSE). What do you think is the main reason for this huge success?
CL: In its early stages I would say the fact that it was based on Ubuntu and came with multimedia codecs. The "Barbara" release is a perfect example of that: it was basically Edgy with added codecs. In Bea we changed a lot of things and made huge improvements to the base system. In Bianca and Cassandra we started to develop our own tools and bring our own innovations. But the thing is: Barbara was successful, long before we did that. In a way it is sad because the people who came towards Linux Mint first were no other than Ubuntu users looking for codecs. Adding codecs to Fedora, Ubuntu or any other distribution is actually not that hard and Ubuntu users even have Automatix to do that for them. It took some time for us to differentiate us from Ubuntu and a lot of communication to show that our purpose wasn't to add codecs to Ubuntu but to go towards our own idea of what a desktop Linux distribution should be. The presence of codecs is just a small part of the equation and unfortunately something a lot of people are obsessed about.
Since we released Bianca the difference with Ubuntu became clearer to the users and we started to get our own identity. I believe some of the reasons for the success of Linux Mint are:
- It's one of the most community driven distributions. You could literally post an idea in the forums today and see it implemented the week after in the "current" release. Of course this has pros and cons and compared to distributions with roadmaps, feature boards and fixed release cycles we miss a lot of structure and potentially a lot of quality, but it allows us to react quickly, implement more innovations and make the whole experience for us and for the users extremely exciting.
- It is a Debian-based distribution and as such it is very solid and it comes with one of the greatest package managers.
- It is compatible with and uses Ubuntu repositories. This gives Linux Mint users access to a huge collection of packages and software.
- It comes with a lot of desktop improvements which make it easier for the user to do common things.
- There is a strong focus on making things work out of the box (WiFi cards drivers in the file system, multimedia support, screen resolution, etc).
DW: How did you come up with the idea to launch Linux Mint?
CL: I started using Linux in 1996. It was Slackware and I was quite happy with it. I learnt a lot about the internals of the system thanks to that distribution. A few years later more and more distributions became available and at the same time people started to get fast Internet at home with faster and faster download speeds. So I started distro-hopping... a lot :) I enjoyed many different distributions and for different reasons. As I became more experienced with Linux I started asking myself how I could contribute back. I spent a lot of time helping out on different IRC channels and writing tutorials and reviews on the web. Eventually I even got paid for it and started writing for LinuxForums.com (you can still read some of my contributions here). I specialized more and more on distribution reviews and after a while I became expert (or so I thought anyway :)) at seeing pros and cons in each one of them.
Looking at all the other distributions, I got a very precise idea of how I would make the perfect desktop if I was to do it myself. And because everything is easy when you're having fun, it wasn't long until I was producing my first ISO files.
DW: Every Linux Mint review I've read concluded that Linux Mint is more user-friendly than most distributions. How do you define the world "user-friendly"? How do you get and test your ideas for any "user-friendly" features that you introduce into the distro?
CL: Most feedback comes from the community; all we need to do is listening to what they say. They've been asking for some features for years and some of the answers we've given them simply aren't acceptable to them. Tweaking fstab to mount their Windows partition, tweaking sources.list to install Skype... My wife uses Linux Mint and there is no way she'd go editing these files. If we want to make a system user-friendly, we need to make it intuitive and easy-to-use. You shouldn't have to ask for help to achieve common things and you should definitely not have to tweak system configuration files manually for this to work. It's great to be able to tweak things but you shouldn't have to for it to work out-of-the-box the way most people want it to work.
DW: Please name three features of Linux Mint that you are the most proud of.
CL: MintInstall is my favourite innovation. You browse a software portal containing .mint files, you choose your software and one click later it's there in your menu. Before mintInstall you had to browse the Web to find that software, eventually edit your sources.list with a new repository, add a security key for that repository to work, update your cache and eventually find the name of the package(s) you wanted to install. This was a repetitive task and an obstacle for novice users to install third party software on their systems. We've automated this with mintInstall. The .mint file contains all the instructions for the installation of the software (names of the packages, URL for the repositories, their keys, instructions to run before and after the installation) so the user doesn't need to worry about things that do not matter to him. The portal also acts as a central place where users can search for software packages and browse them by category. Finally, mintInstall doesn't use your own sources.list and it doesn't alter it so your system is safe and your sources remain unchanged. It replaces the need for both Gnome-App-Install and the upcoming Click'N'Run.
I'm also very proud of mintMenu, although credits go to S. Chanderbally who developed USP (Ubuntu System Panel) which mintMenu forked from and Lars-Peter Clausen who is now the main developer of mintMenu since the release of Bianca. USP already was the best GNOME menu in my opinion. It had more features and brought a lot of improvements to the default GNOME menu. It was also inspired by SUSE's SLAB but implemented in a much better way and made much more responsive and faster. We forked USP2 before it became stable and started by cutting some of its features and fixing existing ones. Eventually Lars took over and, as users asked for new features, he considerably improved it.
In the third position I would hesitate between mintDesktop and mintDisk. Users prefer mintDisk as it acts as a replacement for fstab and gives them more features to deal with FAT/NTFS partitions. For instance they can give aliases to their partitions and define shortcuts to them. I personally prefer mintDesktop, one of the least visible innovations in Linux Mint, because as a developer it makes my life way simpler. Whether it is to add home folders and GNOME templates, to ease GNOME configuration, or to allow auto-mounting of Windows Network Neighbourhoods in ~/Network, it provides a way to do things faster and simpler.
DW: In one of Linux Mint's recent newsletter you mention the upcoming Mint 3.1. What can we expect in the new version? Is there still anything that can be improved on? How do you decide which new features will be added and which won't make it?
CL: There's a constant flow of great ideas and a lot of them end up in our forums. We look at each one of them, discuss them with the community, we review their ideas, they review ours and we take notes of interesting ones within our Wiki. Eventually we start implementing them and when we're happy with the result and have made a significant step forward, we release it and it becomes 3.1 :)
We don't follow any quality process and we don't freeze anything until the release of the BETA. At the moment, we're implementing a first-run wizard called mintAssistant. Among other things, it asks the users a series of questions to fine-tune the installation. Some of the questions are: whether they want to enable kernel updates, the root account and fortunes in terminal, which theme they prefer, whether they want fstab or mintDisk to manage their Windows partitions, whether they prefer a GNOME or a Mint desktop layout, etc.
We're also having a brainstorm at the moment and some very interesting ideas are coming up which we would like to implement for Celena (Linux Mint 3.1). One of them is the ability to share files over the Internet. When a file is bigger than a few megabytes, it becomes really hard to send it by email and most novice users don't know how to share it or how to send it to their friends. The idea is to make the whole process of finding web space and transferring the file via FTP transparent to the user. The users should just right-click the file and select "Share on the Internet", then see a dialog appear with a progress bar and eventually a label telling them the link to the file. They can then send that link to their friends by email. Online storage and file transfer should be taken care of by the system and made transparent to the user.
We're also thinking of something called mintSpace which would consist of an extra home folder. That folder would be mounted on the system but its physical storage would be remote so you could access it from your live CD no matter where you are, provided you're connected to the Internet. This is more of a long term idea though and it won't make it into Celena. Ulteo mentioned some ideas about something similar and I wouldn't mind seeing what they're working on before reinventing the wheel :)
DW: How many developers work on Linux Mint?
CL: Well, it's a community driven project and it's constantly changing as people take on new tasks and finish or give them up. At the moment, we've got three distribution maintainers, one for the Xfce Community edition, one for the E17 Community edition and myself for all other editions (Main, KDE and Light). I also mentioned Lars who has taken lead development on mintMenu. Carlos is also our main artist and leads a community driven sub-project called mintArt which focuses on making the distribution better looking. We also have a lot of people devoting time to other aspects of the distribution such as server maintenance, support, etc... This thread gives an idea of who's working on what.
DW: Are there any plans to introduce a native 64-bit edition of Linux Mint?
CL: There have been a lot of talks and a sub-project dedicated to it. A study was made by that sub-project and they came to the conclusion that the 64-bit Ubuntu Edgy base wasn't appropriate and didn't offer enough to be maintained for Bianca. Things might have changed with Feisty but the sub-project didn't follow on that. There is no official plan to maintain a 64-bit edition of Linux Mint. Of course the community can take responsibility over this and we might see community editions of 64-bit architectures in the future. The community is currently releasing an Xfce edition and they've proved they could take over entire sub-projects.
A community-developed Xfce edition of Linux Mint 3.0 was released for testing last week.
(full image size: 181kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
DW: Canonical has been on the lookout for talented developers and community leaders. Have you ever thought about joining the company? Has anybody from Canonical ever contacted you to discuss the possibility of working on Ubuntu full-time?
CL: I was recently listening to Jono Bacon on LugRadio and his interview in the Linux Action Show. I've also heard a lot of interviews from Mark Shuttleworth but never got the opportunity to talk directly to either of them. They seem like really nice guys and I'm sure Canonical is a wonderful company to work for.
Linux Mint is funded by its community. The money I'm getting out of it represents more or less a quarter of my salary. It's not enough for me to work full time on it but I get enough flexibility and freedom from my current employer to be able to do both my daytime Java development work and my evening-time Linux Mint project :)
If Canonical wanted me to work for them I would be delighted, of course. The question would be how much freedom they would give me and Linux Mint. The default presence of codecs and proprietary technologies in Mint wouldn't be an obstacle for Canonical to actually sponsor the distribution (as "Multimedia Support 1.0" shows in Cassandra Light Edition, we can easily distribute an edition with no codecs and no commercial components and just have all that installed by clicking an icon on the desktop. mintInstall makes the whole process seamless now). The real obstacle would probably be the nature of Linux Mint itself, its organization, and its approach to technology. Both distributions are technologically similar but they're heading in two different directions.
DW: How serious are you about Linux Mint? Do you see yourself still developing and releasing new versions in 5 years time? Or is it something of a hobby that you enjoy doing now, but who knows what will happen in the future?
CL: I never had so much fun, I never had so many people around me telling me how much fun they're having. I'm loving every bit of it :) I don't know if I'll still be working for that telecommunication company in 5 years time, I don't know if the community will still be funding Mint or if a company we created was to sell support worldwide to finance it or even if it merged with another distribution or got bought by some other company. I really don't know what the financial landscape will be and how this distribution and its structure are going to grow, but as far as development goes, you can be sure I'll be there working on the latest tools and trying to impress the crowd in the forums with the latest improvements and the latest release notes :)
Linux is all about fun, and as far as fun goes I'm right where I want to be :) We're here to stay. This is what we love doing, this is what people want and whether the name changes, this or that happens, we'll still be doing the same as long as its fun for us and for our users.
DW: What are the most exciting and most frustrating parts of being a developer of a Linux distro?
CL: The most frustrating part is FUD and pre-conceived ideas. I read here and there people talking about Linux Mint as if it was Automatix 3. They have no idea about what we do and how we do things, some of them even think we ship ATI/NVIDIA drivers. Distro bashing is quite irritating as well. Last week's DistroWatch Weekly got its fair share of PCLinuxOS bashing and to be honest I don't look forward to getting bashed myself.
The most exciting parts of it are community feedback, innovation and development. Most of my time is spent on the forums. People are passionate about the latest release, that gratifies us and it also allows us to see what can be improved. While talking with the community about ideas for the next release, we sometimes get fantastic ideas. Development is a lot of fun too and particularly when we involve the community with the progress we make. A little screenshot, some news here and there and people get really excited :)
The Linux sphere is also very interesting. It has its own press, its own news, things happen, new software and libraries get released, there's something new everyday. You're probably very excited about this as a Linux user and as the maintainer of DistroWatch. When it comes to a distribution, it adds even more excitement as some of these events can directly affect you, your plans and what you're working on at the moment. I can't wait to reject a patent deal with MS (although I doubt they're interested in community-driven distros), I can't wait to include Compiz Fusion in Celena, I can't wait to see what Novell is putting in SUSE 10.3. Every day gets more and more exciting, and we're part of it and we're working hard at making the whole Linux show even more impressive.
I wish people could stop ranting about this and that and realise they're actually part of something which is extremely exciting. It's important to give credit where credit is due, it's important to understand the advantage of open-source and the freedom of free software, but if we're not having fun we may as well leave everything behind. Technology is all about fun, and Linux more than anything else.
We've got the best operating system in the world, with new versions released every day and in more than 300 different flavours. This is fun at its best and I hope passion doesn't prevent people from enjoying it.
DW: Clement, thank you very much and all the best with your project!
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| Feedback |
Feedback on "One year with Puppy Linux"
 Last week's feature story -- One year with Puppy Linux -- was probably one of the most controversial articles DistroWatch has published for some time. While a number of people agreed with the sentiment expressed in the story, others saw it as a needless attack on an excellent Linux distribution. John Murga, the founder and moderator of the official Puppy Linux forum, also responded to the article by emailing us his rebuttal. Although he admitted that he was upset when he wrote the email, he gave DistroWatch permission to publish it in this issue of DistroWatch Weekly.
Hi,
I have received a fair amount of feedback about the piece you published about Puppy Linux on DistroWatch and the comments you posted afterwards.
I have been running the board at a loss for a few years and have always tried to ensure it is the most diverse environment, creating many areas for anything from political discourse to just general bitching and even multi-language help.
In the over two years I have running it I have only ever banned ONE member, and I have managed to bring together many conflicting views and demographics ( an example).
I do believe my board is different. However, early this year a group did form, pushing their own web sites and trying to fork the project. They where never banned or censored on the forum, although they were from other sites after they successfully used your site to try to fragment the community. It is out of this group that this FUD comes from.
But these people are still posting freely to my forum, because: 1) FUD is fine, as long as people get to weigh it up against the real world and can judge it at face value. 2) As the facts tend to become apparent.
However, what you have done is give this particular piece of FUD a platform to transcend this, as the contrast is NOT immediately available. And you state you did this due to the fact that the story stuck a chord with you because of your own experiences with ANOTHER board. I hope you see the obvious problem with this reasoning (!). And it is specially ironic considering it was YOU who censored my releases of Mean Puppy (eventually causing me to abandon the project - thanks).
I would like to think you'd do some due diligence, have a look at the forum and what I have tried to do, and maybe even issue an apology. But somehow I suspect that'll never happen. So I'll just leave you with the knowledge of what you have done and hope you feel in some way accountable.
FYI...
John Murga
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| Miscellaneous News |
GPL 3, Google Desktop, GNU/Linux distro timeline, YaSTRS for openSUSE, PC-BSD LiveCD, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.2
Headlines of many Linux news sites were dominated by two events during the past week: the final release of the General Public License (GPL) version 3 and the availability of the Linux edition of Google Desktop. The former was preceded by heated debates, especially after Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, openly dismissed the idea that his famous product would switch to the new license. But others, such as the GNU software developers and other proponents of free software, are likely to start re-licensing their own products in the next few months. On the Google Desktop front, the name of the product is actually somewhat misleading; as reported in this review by Linux.com, Google Desktop is really just a desktop search engine similar to Beagle. Good perhaps for those who depend heavily on other Google products and services, but not particularly unique or useful for the rest of us. Or do you have a different opinion? If so, tell us in the forum below.
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Andreas Lundqvist, the maintainer of the Distro timeline chart, has emailed DistroWatch with the details about the latest updates on the project's front: "The timeline has evolved into a rather big project - the latest version lists 179 distributions (including name changes, hence a few less unique distributions) and has been renamed 'GNU/Linux distro timeline', licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL). It is now distributed both in vector (thanks to the help of Aleksandar Urošević who helped me with the transition) and bitmap form. Recently I have been focusing on adding old-time distributions rather than the ever increasing amount of tiny-mod-of-popular-distro distros." The latest version of GNU/Linux distro timeline chart is 7.6 and its PNG edition is available for viewing here.
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 Many Mandriva users are probably familiar with EasyURPMI, a web-based tool for generating a list of popular package repositories for Mandriva Linux. Now the openSUSE users can enjoy a similar utility: "YaSTRS is a simple tool that generates a shell script to add a number of popular YaST repositories to your openSUSE installation. In order to provide a high-quality database, all mirrors are automatically validated on a regular basis. The system is currently in beta testing, so bug reports are welcome." The product, available for all supported processor architectures, includes the popular openSUSE repositories of Packman and Guru. If you are an openSUSE user, check out the new YaST Repositories Script generator (YaSTRS) by visiting this page.
On a related note, a brand new web site dedicated to openSUSE themes, icons, wallpapers and other desktop art was launched at SUSE-Art.org.
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 If you are interested in BSD live CDs, here is another interesting option: PC-BSD LiveCD. Although it's not clear whether this is an official sub-project of PC-BSD or just an independent initiative of a PC-BSD developer, this CD is probably one of the best live desktop BSD products built to-date. Based on FreeBSD 6.2, it includes KDE 3.5.6, X.Org 7.2, Kaffeine media player with support for MP3, OGG, DIVX and MPEG formats, Konversation IRC cleint, Smb4k samba client, Fusefs file system, Midnight Commander, and a total of 503 pre-compiled FreeBSD ports. The PC-BSD live CD is not fully automatic though; it boots into a terminal and it requires running "X -configure" before launching the KDE desktop with "startx". Download it from here: pcbsdlive240607.iso (637MB, MD5).
PC-BSD Live - a live CD edition of PC-BSD
(full image size: 263kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 The updated Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.2 DVD is now available for free download. Originally released on 14 June, the new version offers a number of improvements and package updates over the previous release, most notably: "Linux kernel 2.6.22-rc4; Software Development Kit v2.0 for Cell Broadband Engine; more than 70 bug fixes and updates; continued support for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems; beta IBM 'System p' support." The new DVD of this specialist, Fedora-based distribution for PowerPC processors can be downloaded from one of these mirrors or directly from this FTP server: yellowdog-5.0.2-20070629.iso (3,765MB, MD5).
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| Released Last Week |
SoL 25.00
Martin Willner has announced the release of Server optimized Linux (SoL) version 25.00: "SoL - Server optimized Linux 25.00. Features: Fast and easy installation system with RAID wizard; supports network (over PXE) and DVD installation; optimized for modern CPU architectures; ready to use as XEN dom0 or domU; features QEMU mode to boot right from Windows; integrated server development workbench tools; full-featured diskless training; software: Nagios monitoring tools, IPVS, Heartbeat, DRBD, keppalived cluster tools, Xen 3.1.0 and QEMU 0.9.0, X.Org 7.2, Zope 2.10.3 application server, Apache 2.2.4 with PHP 5.2.1 extension, Enlightenment E17 desktop; MySQL 5.0.x and MySQL GUI Tools, PostgreSQL, Firebird and SQLite database backends...." Please visit the project's home page to read the complete list of features.
Scientific Linux 4.5
Connie Sieh and Troy Dawson have announced the release of Scientific Linux 4.5, a distribution rebuilt from source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4: "Scientific Linux 4.5 has been officially released. This release took a little longer because of changes in the installer. Although you cannot use Scientific Linux 4.5 as a Xen virtual host, it can now be installed as a Xen paravirtual guest. This gives a significant speed increase over fully virtualized guests. We want to thank all those tested, retested, contributed, and worked with the developers. We think the Scientific Linux community is one of the best to work with. We hope you enjoy the release." Here is the brief release announcement.
Dreamlinux 2.2 "Multimedia GL"
The Multimedia GL (MMGL) edition of Dreamlinux 2.2 has been released: "If you are searching for an operating system that allows you to: be free, communicate with the whole world, read, write and produce art, music, drawings, images, etc, you now have no excuses not to give Dreamlinux 2.2 Multimedia GL Edition a try. Packaging the best office, electronic publishing, image, design and digital painting open source software, Dreamlinux 2.2 MMGL Edition allows you to produce professional quality contents. Joining the proven Linux OS base and a well organized and clean desktop you will experience a new way to deal with your computer." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
Evinux 200701
Evinux is a French live CD featuring the Xfce desktop. The project announced a new major release earlier this week; the new Evinux 200701 is based on Debian Etch and KNOPPIX 5.1.1, it comes with Linux kernel 2.6.19, Xfce 4, Iceweasel, Icedove with Enigmail, AbiWord, Gnumeric, Grisbi, GParted... It is designed to work in French but should accept other languages. The particularity of this release is that it's the first one which is not made as a remastered build of KNOPPIX, but with a "debootstraped" Debian Etch with all the necessary KNOPPIX packages to let it work as a live CD. For more details please read the full release announcement (in French).
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Fluxbuntu "Gutsy Gibbon"
The Fluxbuntu project, which develops a light-weight Ubuntu variant designed for older computers, has published a release update and a schedule for its upcoming release "Gutsy Gibbon": "We are maintaining a strict schedule for Gutsy Gibbon in order to release the final versions of Fluxbuntu on time. We will start building Gutsy CD images on the Tribe 3 deadline which is July 19th (so you all will have something to test). Tribe 1 and Tribe 2 are broken since Ubuntu Gutsy itself is in an extreme state of change." For more information please see the release update and release schedule.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
June 2007 donation: KTorrent receives US$400
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the DistroWatch.com June 2007 donation is the KTorrent project. It receives US$400.00 in cash.
KTorrent is a graphical BitTorrent client for KDE. With the increasing number of distributions using the BitTorrent protocol to distribute their files, KTorrent has become an indispensable tool for any serious distro hopper. Its graphical interface has improved dramatically over the last few versions and the amount of information and configuration options is simply astonishing. It's undoubtedly one of the best graphical BitTorrent clients available today!
As always, the monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com. These vendors contributed US$50.00 each towards this month's donation to KTorrent.
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NdisWrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a PowerPack competition), digiKam ($408) and SabayonLinux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400)
Since the launch of the Donations Programme in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$13,740 to various open source software projects.
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Translations of Top Ten Distributions page
Many thanks to Jose Tadeu Barros who have translated the Top Ten Distributions page into Portuguese (Brazilian). The story is now available in 11 languages: Czech, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish and Swedish. Translations to other languages are most welcome - if you'd like to help, please email your work to distro at distrowatch dot com (preferably in plain text format using UTF-8 encoding).
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Baltix GNU/Linux. Baltix GNU/Linux is an Ubuntu-based live CD localised into Latvian and Lithuanian languages. Besides standard packages normally present in Ubuntu, Baltix also includes extra educational software and the light-weight IceWM window manager.
Baltix GNU/Linux 2.7 - an Ubuntu-based distribution optimised for Lithuanian and Latvian users
(full image size: 371kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- Draco GNU/Linux. Draco GNU/Linux is a distribution based on Slackware Linux and pkgsrc. Inspired by NetBSD, Draco separates the base system and "third-party" packages, which makes it a very clean, small and stable distribution. The pkgsrc utility gives Draco access to over 8,000 packages and selected binary packages from the pkgsrc tree are available for every release.
- FrogLinux. FrogLinux is an Ubuntu-based, easy-to-use desktop Linux distribution developed in Quebec (Canada). Among its most interesting features are support for French, automatic network, printing and graphics card configuration and optimised software packages. FrogLinux is available in the form of an installation CD/DVD, live CD/DVD, and bootable medium for USB storage devices.
FrogLinux 1.6 - a French Canadian distribution based on Ubuntu
(full image size: 371kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- pclosBE. pclosBE (or PCLinuxOS Business Edition) is a PCLinuxOS-based distribution optimised for small and home offices. Two editions are being developed: the pclosBE Desktop edition, which will include a variety of business oriented software, and the pclosBE Server edition, which will provide a simple way of setting up most kinds of servers.
- TinyME. TinyME is a PCLinuxOS-based mini distribution. The project's main purpose is to deliver a light-weight operating system (with Openbox as its desktop) for older computers, while preserving the same levels of functionality and configurability as found in most heavy-weight Linux distributions available on the market. Here is a mini review with screenshots.
- UW-Linux. UW-Linux is a Polish, general-purpose mini distribution based on Slackware Linux.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 9 July 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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ArcheOS
ArcheOS stands for Archaeological Operating System. It was a GNU/Linux live DVD distribution (versions 1.x based on PCLinuxOS, versions 2 and 3 on Kubuntu, version 4 on Debian GNU/Linux), with specialist software for archaeological purposes.
Status: Discontinued
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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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