 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 217, 27 August 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 35th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! There is little doubt about it - Ubuntu is the most popular desktop Linux distribution on the market. But the great variety of available statistics, usage surveys and web long analyses means that it's often impossible to estimate the true usage figures and switching habits of individual users. Does it all really matter? Read our editorial on the subject and comment in the forums. In the news section, we link to a handful of interesting articles covering the openSUSE package management, Gentoo overlays, and Debian boot process with initng. Finally, the KDE development team has revealed that its official KDE 4 release party will only take place some four months after the release of version 4.0. The reason? Read on to find out.
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (6.1MB) and mp3 (5.6MB) formats (many thanks to Jim Putman)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Editorial |
How popular is a distribution
No matter how futile the matter is, many of us seem obsessed with the idea of determining the popularity and market share of Linux distributions. Whether its through public polls on popular web sites, download trackers, web server log analyses, or Netcraft-style OS detection of web servers, the results continue to baffle the Linux-using population. The reason? They all give different results.
Last week's conclusion of Desktop Linux Survey 2007 was another attempt at collecting information about the usage of desktop Linux distributions and major software applications. The results were not particularly surprising - Ubuntu walked away with over 30% share of the votes, ahead of openSUSE (nearly 20%) and Debian GNU/Linux (just under 12%). All three are highly popular distributions with a broad mindshare, even among less technical computer users who don't follow the Linux distro market very closely.
But some of the DistroWatch readers might have been surprised by the poor performance of the three distributions that are fairly new and relatively small in terms of mindshare, but have been hot on the DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking (PHR) statistics: PCLinuxOS, Sabayon Linux and Linux Mint. Here is what Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols had to say on the subject while analysing the results:
"Perhaps the most surprising result of our survey was that PCLinuxOS showed so poorly. On DistroWatch, PCLinuxOS has been at the top of the site's page hit ranking for the last 30 days. Frankly, we're not sure why this popular, easy-to-use community distribution didn't do better. The site supporting it had recently had problems, but that problem's long been history. Perhaps, it's simply that unlike the other popular community distributions -- Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Fedora -- PCLinuxOS doesn't have corporate backing. Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat all provide support and hardware partnerships for their community distributions that PCLinuxOS can't match."
Granted, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking doesn't mean all that much and we have been saying this for years. However, our web log analysis of DistroWatch.com visitors' user agent strings indicates that PCLinuxOS represents 6.2% of all Linux-using visitors, which makes its the third most popular Linux distribution (after Ubuntu and Debian). openSUSE, which received nearly 20% of votes in the DesktopLinux survey, is used by less than 5% of those DistroWatch visitors who visit these pages with Linux.
To make these figures more digestable, here is a tabular comparison of the three indicators mentioned above: the DesktopLinux survey, DistroWatch web log analysis and DistroWatch PHR. Bear in mind that some distributions, notably Slackware and Gentoo, do not provide custom browser strings, which makes it impossible for the web server to account for them. In case of the DistroWatch PHR, the percentage figures were calculated using the top 100 distributions only and the Ubuntu figure also includes those of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, etc, since the DesktopLinux survey also grouped them together. The last column represents the average of these three (or two, in case of missing browser string identifiers) indicators.
No matter which indicator we take for the most representative, one thing is clear - Ubuntu is the top desktop Linux distribution at the moment. Beyond that assertion, it's anybody's guess; openSUSE and Debian seem also highly popular, but Fedora does not do particularly well in any of the statistics or surveys. Some newer and smaller distributions, such as PCLinuxOS, Linux Mint and Sabayon Linux are rising in terms of popularity, but as the DesktopLinux survey indicates, none of them has reached sufficient mindshare to penetrate into the wider market. The enterprise class products, such as CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise are probably not used much on the desktop or their users care little for either DistroWatch or Linux market surveys.
At the end of the day, we still know little about the popularity of distributions. That said, these figures aren't completely useless - they produce an endless string of entertaining discussions on various forums and deliver evidence that most of us care about these issues, even if we'll never find the correct answers.
But there is one set of figures that is perhaps more important than any of the distro market share surveys. When I started DistroWatch in 2001, 95% of the visitors used Windows and Internet Explorer to access the site. Some six years later, only 19% of you read this site with Internet Explorer. As for operating system statistics, the usage of Linux to access the site has risen from a near-zero to a whopping 36% today! While various market share surveys are entertaining and sometimes even useful (for companies like Dell in order to determine what to put on their computers), there is no denying that the usage of Linux has risen rather dramatically over the last few years. And that's all that matters.
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| Statistics |
DistroWatch in Europe
The final stop on our statistical journey of DistroWatch readership takes us to Europe (after publishing similar sets of data for Africa, Asia, the Americas and the South Pacific). The purpose of these statistical analyses was to show the year-on-year change in the number of DistroWatch visitors from different countries and territories.
Like all other continents, Europe also experienced strong growth in terms of DistroWatch visits during the past year, with the overall increase of 25%. Interestingly, the only country where the number of visitors dropped from a year ago (ignoring the tiny Andorra) is Finland, the birthplace of Linux! Luckily, this was generously compensated for by visits from all other countries, with Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, Greece and Ireland in particular recording very strong growth. (The figures are courtesy of the GeoLite Country IP-to-country database from Maxmind which claims an accuracy of 98%.)
| Rank |
Country/Territory |
2006 |
2007 |
% Change |
| 1 |
Germany (DE) |
981,339 |
1,238,727 |
+26.2% |
| 2 |
Italy (IT) |
732,517 |
912,876 |
+24.6% |
| 3 |
United Kingdom (GB) |
722,519 |
891,039 |
+23.3% |
| 4 |
France (FR) |
638,583 |
720,702 |
+12.9% |
| 5 |
Poland (PL) |
359,428 |
518,088 |
+44.1% |
| 6 |
Spain (ES) |
353,994 |
429,769 |
+21.4% |
| 7 |
Netherlands (NL) |
357,566 |
420,609 |
+17.6% |
| 8 |
Sweden (SE) |
271,589 |
310,838 |
+14.5% |
| 9 |
Finland (FI) |
231,817 |
215,551 |
-7.0% |
| 10 |
Romania (RO) |
158,888 |
212,941 |
+34.0% |
| 11 |
Switzerland (CH) |
118,325 |
199,998 |
+69.0% |
| 12 |
Belgium (BE) |
179,174 |
195,456 |
+9.1% |
| 13 |
Portugal (PT) |
127,878 |
184,753 |
+44.5% |
| 14 |
Hungary (HU) |
135,017 |
160,099 |
+18.6% |
| 15 |
Norway (NO) |
120,686 |
158,505 |
+31.3% |
| 16 |
Russia (RU) |
87,469 |
144,113 |
+64.8% |
| 17 |
Greece (GR) |
80,304 |
134,045 |
+66.9% |
| 18 |
Denmark (DK) |
113,974 |
132,253 |
+16.0% |
| 19 |
Austria (AT) |
93,427 |
123,491 |
+32.2% |
| 20 |
Czech Republic (CZ) |
78,684 |
115,986 |
+47.4% |
| 21 |
Bulgaria (BG) |
90,392 |
113,901 |
+26.0% |
| 22 |
Slovakia (SK) |
64,292 |
76,937 |
+19.7% |
| 23 |
Estonia (EE) |
67,472 |
72,145 |
+6.9% |
| 24 |
Slovenia (SI) |
42,059 |
52,179 |
+24.1% |
| 25 |
Ukraine (UA) |
21,480 |
39,999 |
+86.2% |
| 26 |
Croatia (HR) |
30,752 |
39,709 |
+29.1% |
| 27 |
Ireland (IE) |
25,533 |
39,656 |
+55.3% |
| 28 |
Lithuania (LT) |
32,738 |
37,007 |
+13.0% |
| 29 |
Latvia (LV) |
23,500 |
31,031 |
+32.0% |
| 30 |
Serbia (RS) |
11,264 |
30,797 |
+173.4% |
| 31 |
Luxembourg (LU) |
10,547 |
13,782 |
+30.7% |
| 32 |
Belarus (BY) |
4,987 |
9,329 |
+87.1% |
| 33 |
Macedonia (MK) |
5,034 |
9,302 |
+84.8% |
| 34 |
Iceland (IS) |
7,938 |
8,692 |
+9.5% |
| 35 |
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) |
5,691 |
7,740 |
+36.0% |
| 36 |
Moldova (MD) |
1,830 |
6,037 |
+229.9% |
| 37 |
Cyprus (CY) |
4,239 |
4,772 |
+12.6% |
| 38 |
Malta (MT) |
3,291 |
4,453 |
+35.3% |
| 39 |
Andorra (AD) |
2,349 |
1,816 |
-22.7% |
| 40 |
Faroe Island (FO) |
814 |
1,162 |
+42.8% |
| -- |
Rest of Europe |
3,278 |
3,353 |
+2.3% |
| Total |
Europe |
6,402,658 |
8,023,638 |
+25.3% |
| |
|
|
|
|
| -- |
USA (US) |
6,045,984 |
7,135,032 |
+18.0% |
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|
| Miscellaneous News |
openSUSE package management, Gentoo overlays, Debian with initng, KDE 4.0
 Ever since the infamous openSUSE 10.1 release (with new, but buggy and poorly tested package management backend), the openSUSE developers have been working on improving the experience of managing software for its users. The upcoming openSUSE 10.3 will be no exception as a number of major new features are being introduced into the distribution. Chief among them are improvements in zypper, a command line tool, and openSUSE updater, a software update notification applet. Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett explains the reasons behind the work in this article at openSUSE News: "For 10.3 we sat down and discussed how to improve the situation, in a reasonable time-frame. What we did was concentrate mostly on the 20% that caused 80% of the unhappiness, both for the users and for the developers. The task involved lot of profiling (with lot of help from other teams), designing and trying prototypes and proof of concepts. Then we branched and created a zypp2 library where we started to re-create all parsers, the cache engine, downloaders, etc from scratch, and unit tests for them. Later everything was integrated with the main library and zypp2 was removed. Then the next step was to port zypper and the YaST glue."
* * * * *
 Last week's editorial about Gentoo Linux, while predictably generating a wide range of opinions, also produced one clear message - Gentoo is a distribution that is much appreciated by those Linux users who enjoy tailoring their operating system to their exact needs. But even with the variety of available tools and with the flexibility of Portage, there are still limitations in terms of installing some of the more cutting-edge packages on Gentoo Linux. This is where the Portage overlays come in: "One of my biggest issues with Portage is lack of support for 'new' and emerging (no pun intended) software. What do I mean by that? I mean some of the most-hyped and off-the-wall cool programs that have come out in the last year or so: Compiz Fusion, Avant-Window-Navigator, KDE4, XMMS2, amongst others. I'm not entirely sure why Gentoo developers or managers choose not to support newer software. Supporting it would give these projects more feedback, thus making them stable faster. It would be a contribution to the open source community to offer basic package support for these programs. There's an easy way around this now, without having to compile the source on your own: portage overlays."
* * * * *
 Over the last year or so we have seen much effort among Linux distribution to replace the ancient init system of booting Linux/UNIX with a more modern, faster implementation of the boot process. One way of increasing the boot speed of Debian GNU/Linux (and other distributions) is by replacing its SysVinit system with initng: "The old init system loads services one after the other; initng makes booting faster by loading services in a parallel fashion. There is no reason that process X can't use the CPU while process Y is reading data from disk. Installing initng on Debian 'Lenny' was as simple as installing any other software package. Here are installation instructions for most distributions, installing initng won't mess up the old init systems and you can easily go back when initng doesn't suit you or if it doesn't work. The speed increase I got from booting wasn't that awesome but it was nice. The old init system booted my workstation to the KDM login manager in 23.9 seconds. Booting using initng took 13.2 seconds, so it's nice but nothing jaw-dropping."
* * * * *
 When exactly is the long-awaited KDE 4 going to be released? And once it's out, will it be stable enough for production use? As if reading the minds of testers who have found the recently released first beta of KDE 4 barely usable, the KDE development team has come up with a new plan. Yes, they will release KDE 4 on October 23rd as planned; however, they won't really announce it until January 2008: "For quite some time the KDE team thought about having a KDE 4 release party some months after the original KDE 4.0 release. According to that plan the KDE 4.0 release in October will be official, but not press-release-official - that one will be celebrated some months later." If this goes ahead, probably the hardest part will be explaining the unusual decision to the media: "Most distributions (especially the KDE-centric ones) are not going to pick up KDE 4 as default in the 4th quarter releases. But this issue has to be explained to the industry and to the press and I wonder how these will take it. The KDE team will definitely have to work out some good explanation."
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| Released Last Week |
SmoothWall Express 3.0
SmoothWall Express 3.0, a free firewall distribution that includes its own security-hardened GNU/Linux operating system and an easy-to-use web interface, has been released: "Express 3.0 is our latest version of the long running and successful SmoothWall Express firewall. Headline new features relative to 2.0: supports a 4th network card for Wireless Access Points; 64-bit support; based upon Linux 2.6 kernel; new realtime traffic graph shows traffic bandwidth usage over time (AJAX); per-IP address traffic statistics collection in all traffic stats pages; Instant Messenger proxy with logging and filtering abilities; SATA and SCSI support; streamlined installer and setup; outbound filtering; new update mechanism which can download and install all pending updates with a single click...." Read the comprehensive release notes for full details.
PAIPIX 7.0
PAIPIX is a Debian-based live DVD with focus on scientific applications. A major new version, now based on Debian 4.0 "Etch", was released yesterday: "The new PAIPIX 7 keeps its focus on scientific software but drops the emphasis on a pure live DVD to integrate installation, live and upgrade systems. The new main use cases are: LIVE - starting PAIPIX in the live mode, one has access to complete system including KDE, office and development; INSTALLATION - by starting PAIPIX in the installation mode one has access to the standard Debian installer system; UPGRADE - as part of the entire system, the DVD includes a Debian CD-ROM repository that includes all necessary packages. The PAIPIX ISO images are available in English and in bilingual editions that support both English and one of the following languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and German." More details in the release announcement.
PAIPIX 7.0 - a Debian-based live and installation DVD with scientific applications
(full image size: 403kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Absolute Linux 12.0.3
Paul Sherman has released an updated version of Absolute Linux, a Slackware-based distribution with the IceWM window manager and graphical configuration utilities. From the changelog: "Updated slapt-get 0.9.12, gslapt 0.3.18, GnuPG 1.4.7 (which can co-exist with the installed GnuPG 2.x); kernel source header versions corrected, compiles NVIDIA driver OK; adjusted mime handlers in ROX for WMA and WAV files and added conversion scripts in SENDTO menu - wav2mp3, wma2mp3 and flv2avi; fixed error in DevTray where data DVDs were not auto-mounting; fixed modules install to properly match custom kernel; updated to Firefox 2.0.0.6, also updated Xpdf, mkinitr, and the ati, nv and vesa X modules; developer documentation for Qt and xdialog moved to CD2 to make space; Frostwire package added; AbScreen updated to 2.2."
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch Weekly podcast returns
Good news for all those readers who have missed the podcast edition of DistroWatch Weekly since it was discontinued a few months ago. Thanks to an effort by Jim Putman, the weekly audio (in MP3 format) that includes most of the content from each DistroWatch Weekly is now available once again. Please subscribe to the RSS feed here. If you have any comments or suggestions please email them to Jim (linuxcaster at gmail dot com). Happy listening!
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- BlackRoute. BlackRoute is a Slackware-based security and forensics analysis Linux distribution for x86-compatible architectures. The goal of the project is to create a GNU/Linux distribution for advance users, texttool enthusiasts, network and security specialist, and system administrators.
BlackRoute 0.1 RC1 - a Slackware-based distribution for forensic analysis tasks with WindowMaker
(full image size: 341kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- Embun. Embun is a Malaysian desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu.
Embun 2.0 RC1 - a Malaysian Linux distribution based on Ubuntu
(full image size: 1,586kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- Lapwing-Linux. Lapwing-Linux is a light-weight desktop distribution based on Slackware Linux.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 3 September 2007.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
White Box Enterprise Linux
What was the goal for White Box Linux? To provide an unencumbered RPM-based Linux distribution that retains enough compatibility with Red Hat Linux to allow easy upgrades and to retain compatibility with their errata SRPMs. Being based off of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3.0 means that a machine should be able to avoid the upgrade treadmill until October 2008 since RHEL promises errata availability for 5 years from date of initial release. Or more briefly, to fill the gap between Fedora and RHEL. Why was White Box Linux created? Its initial creation was sponsored by the Beauregard Parish Public Library in DeRidder, USA out of self interest. We have several servers and over 50 workstations running Red Hat Linux and were left high and dry by Red Hat's recent shift in business plan. Our choices were a difficult migration to another distribution or paying Red Hat an annual fee greater than the amortized value of our hardware. So we chose a third path, made possible by the power of open source.... White Box Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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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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