 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 261, 14 July 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It's been a slow distro week, but not completely dead. We've had a few releases, several developmental releases, and a bit of news. We also have a guest writer with us this morning, Maurice Lawles. You might know Maurice from his TechieMoe website and hard-hitting distro reviews. Today he shares some of his thoughts on the KDE 4 situation.
All this and more in this week's DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (14MB) and mp3 (13MB) formats (many thanks to Russ Wenner)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
A Fork in the Road, with No Clear Direction?
(by Maurice Lawles)
There's been quite some controversy over the recent release of KDE 4, which brought with it sweeping changes to the way many very basic things work, including such fundamental elements as how icons are dealt with on the desktop (broadly speaking, they're not). Volleys have been thrown from one side and the next and casualties have been suffered, but one thing remains clear: the KDE development team is sticking to their guns. KDE 4 is here to stay.
The inclusion of KDE 4.0 in several major distribution releases (Fedora 9, openSuSE 11) has brought the new baby to unprecedented numbers of people, many of whom have noted that it's missing a few limbs here and there. 4.1 is supposed to fix that. There are those who are skeptical.
In light of this debacle, there are quite a few Linux folks out there wondering what the future may hold for their choice desktop. For those in the KDE 3.5 camp, a hard decision awaits. Do we hold on to 3.5 as long as possible and perhaps hope it will be forked? Do we embrace the new (warts and all) and trust that the KDE team knows what's best in the long run? Or do we consider jumping to another ship entirely? If you're unsure about where you might go, consider the alternatives.
Please note that I'm in no way trying to give an exhaustive overview of all the available desktop alternatives here. That would be (for lack of a better term) exhausting. I'm just hitting the more popular and feature-complete ones.
KDE 3.5
Yes, for the moment there is no "drop dead" date for KDE 3.5, so it's still a viable alternative if you're not a fan of Plasmoids. This version of KDE is still standard in Kubuntu 8.04 and comes as an option in most of the large distributions out there (openSuSE 11, Fedora 9). You will, of course, have to be okay with the idea that at some unspecified point in the future support for the 3.5.x branch will go away.
Gnome
The Gnome desktop is stable and feature-rich. It is the default in several high-profile distributions such as Ubuntu and Redhat Enterprise Linux. The interface is simple (sometimes frustratingly so). It's well-maintained and hasn't changed dramatically for a while. This is both a blessing and a curse. There are many long-term Gnome users (myself included) who are simply getting bored with it. No earth-shattering improvements have shown up in the last few releases. End-users know what to expect and we get it: nothing more, nothing less. Where is an adventurous Linuxer to go?
Enlightenment
It's not the standard desktop, or even available as a default choice in most of the major distributions out there, but it certainly can't be called boring. Enlightenment prides itself in making things interesting. There's even a LiveCD designed specifically to show off all its bells and whistles. If you're an Ubuntu fan, there's an off-shoot, OpenGEU that comes with it preinstalled and configured. In my personal experience, getting it pre-packaged is the way to go. Enlightenment is highly configurable, but the sheer number of configuration options can confuse the uninitiated.
The Lightweights
Gnome and KDE 3.5 offer not only a desktop but a suite of applications that go with it. Not everyone buys into that, and for them I present the Lightweights. They won't tax your RAM, your CPU, or your patience, just offer the bare minimum and stay out of your way.
The desktop of choice for the Xubuntu project, XFce is somewhere between a full desktop environment and just a window manager. It can be configured to use fewer resources than KDE or Gnome, but still offers creature comforts to those used to more resource-intensive GUIs.
When I really want to shut off the world and get geeky, I tend to use Fluxbox. It's minimal, configurable, and uses an incredibly small amount of RAM (less than 5 MBs on some of my systems). It sports an impressive collection of themes as well. It has a minimal number of distractions for when I really want to dig in and get work done.
FVWM is another small-footprint window manager I've run into from time to time. It's available as a failsafe session on some distributions, but it can be quite useful in its own right. Some lightweight Linux distributions use it to offer a more traditional application menu than Fluxbox. It can even be made to imitate other operating systems.
If your aesthetic taste lies somewhere closer to 1993, you might consider GNUStep, an OSS implementation of OpenStep. I've successfully run this on an old Acer Aspire (with a whopping 4MB video device) that I was given when someone cleaned out their garage. If it can work with those limited resources, anything of the Pentium II line and above should have no issues.
Conclusion
History will have to determine whether the changes made in KDE 4 are the right ones. Events like this are not without precedent in the open-source community. There's a real possibility that KDE's developers will build functionality in the future to better imitate what many people grew to love about KDE 3.5. At this point it's too early to tell.
The road to the next stable version of KDE is rocky, but perhaps instead of complaining that it hurts our feet we should consider an alternate path. Unlike some other operating systems, a Linux user need never be forced to use a desktop that no longer fits their needs. There are a number of excellent choices out there for those willing to explore.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Gentoo's False Start, Debian Day 2008, openSUSE Build Service 1.0
 The release of openSUSE's Build Service generated quite a bit of buzz around the Internet last week. The Build Service allows developers to create and maintain packages for openSUSE and several other Linux distributions. This 1.0 milestone expands its scope to building the entire openSUSE release and allows access to the entire distribution as the developers' full working copy is available. So, it's not just for developers anymore. Check out the full announcement on that if interested. In other news, openSUSE will be at the LinuxWorld Expo being held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on August 6. If you're in the area, you might want to stop by their first openSUSE Day. Learn all about openSUSE and pick up some nice swag too. Here's the full schedule for those lucky attendees.
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 Mandriva had a little oopsie with their GUADEC Spring Flash keys. If you were one of the lucky recipients, you'll have to fix it before you can install it and you might have to restart the display manager the first run. Oh well, at least it was a gift. And speaking of Mandriva and gifts, you might be able to win a Mandriva Flash (one of the fully functioning versions) if you'd like to offer some feedback. Mandriva says, "Mandriva wants to know its users better, so we're giving you the floor. We're opening a completely anonymous questionnaire for you to give your views on your favorite distribution. By giving a little of your time you can help us improve our products and services." You only have until July 17, so if you use Mandriva take the survey soon.
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 Debian Day 2008 is coming August 16 to commemorate Debian's 15th birthday. Celebrations are planned all around the world. Brazil is right on ball with four planned events so far and Portugal is planning one in Aveiro. Time is running short, but I hope we see more countries celebrating one of most important projects in Open Source. Thank you Mr. Murdock, and Happy Birthday Debian!
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 Ubuntu posted their UDS Intrepid Report on their wiki summarizing some of the plans cooking for the upcoming 8.10 release. Some of the current ideas include fixing bugs in Xorg 1.5, new features for Wubi, improved Flash support, improved Firefox KDE integration, faster boot times, and OpenOffice.org 3.0. Keep an eye on the wiki page if you'd like to follow the developments.
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 After the long awaited Gentoo 2008.0 release, many users were disappointed to find they weren't able to use it. The LiveCD for x86/amd64 couldn't copy the kernel when installing the system and the LiveCD for AMD64 wouldn't even fit on a standard 700 MB CD without overburning. Revisions were posted quickly, but not fast enough for some. Robbat2 posted some rough download numbers for this release. He calculates the total number of downloads to be 106450 so far.
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 Red Hat has announced a planned outage of their bugzilla.redhat.com servers on August 2nd, 2008 from 9:00 AM EST to 5:00 PM EST in order to update to the latest upstream code base. The announcement states, "During this time the web servers will be reinstalled with the latest OS updates as well as the latest Bugzilla code. Also the database servers will undergo a data migration to be made compatible with the latest Bugzilla code. The web UI, database, and all XMLRPC services will be unavailable during the migration." For those effected, please plan around that.
* * * * *
 Speaking of KDE 4, Sebastian Kügler of the KDE e.V. Board of Directors addressed many of the concerns so loudly voiced last few months. Publishing an extensive article on Groklaw Friday, Kügler answers such criticisms as releasing 4.0 was a mistake, KDE needs to drop Plasma, and KDE needs a fork. See that full article for answers to these concerns and much more.
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| Released Last Week |
Absolute Linux 12.1.02
Paul Sherman has announced the release of Absolute Linux 12.1.02, the second bug-fix and security update of the stable 12.1 series: "Absolute Linux 12.1.02. Changes: Firefox updated to 3.0, this necessitated installation of XULRunner 1.9, which can also subsequently be used to build Firebird and other applications; MPlayer plugin on Firefox 3 is a wash - had to go with gecko-mplayer; updated PCMan File Manager with much more robust handling of file types; added isomaster for working with CD image files; added KFileReplace; added a few games (Monsterz, LBreakout2, Njam and BumpRace); added scripts and desktop files to convert FLV and OGG video to AVI; added lshw, along with script (run_lshw) that outputs in HTML format and opens the results in Links; updated to xorg-server 1.4.2; Fox (toolkit) and Fluxbox moved to CD2." Read the rest of the changelog for further details.
Absolute Linux 12.1.02 Desktop
(full image size: 51kB, screen resolution: 1280x800 pixels)
GoblinX 2.7
Flavio Pereira de Oliveira announced the availability of GoblinX 2.7 Standard, a Slackware-based desktop distribution and live CD: "After more than four months of development, as GoblinX 2.6 was released at February 18, we are pleased to announce the availability of the new stable edition... It includes five Windows Managers: KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, Enlightenment and WindowMaker. Main upgrades since rc01 edition: Corrected some small errors and bugs. Upgraded some packages and libraries, including some security fixes. Added extra folders to be used as package repository. Added media package repository to Slapt-getrc. Added interface to build module with Slapt-get help. Added GUI for deactivate script to let anyone remove modules of the livecd. Added directly autologin to Xorg as user for the installed system. Added package upgrade check to Xfce panel with Xfce4-smartpm-plugin." Visit the project's news page for the full announcement.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2008
Yann Le Doarè announced a new release of LinuxConsole, an independently developed, modular Linux live CD: "This '1.0.2008' release has been built from a new toolchain based on gcc 4.2.2 and glibc 2.7. The 2.4 kernel is not available for that release, but you can continue using 2007 ISOs if you have to install linuxconsole on very old computers. The kernel is 2.6.25.4, patched with squashfs (module format for linuxconsole) and aufs (can write on modules). Since bootsplash is obsolete, usplash replaces it. GNOME is available in 2.20 release, since it's very stable; an update to 2.22 will be available soon. KDE is in 3.5.9 release, but not present on CD (not enough disk space). You can install it with modules manager or wait the 'DVD' release... DVD release will be ready in September." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement.
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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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| Reviewed Last Week |
Among the reviews noted last week Linux.com concentrated on two small flexible distributions that have gained a lot of respect in Linux circles. CodingExperiments.com looked at Foresight Linux 2.0.2.1 and PlanetOSS reviewed SabayonLinux 3.5. And not surprisingly, the new Mandriva 2009.0 Alpha 2 got tested as well.
* On SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0 Linux.com concludes: The SliTaz developers have redefined what a micro GNU/Linux distribution can and should be, even if the developer's goals for the distribution may not be the same as the goals of a normal desktop or laptop user, who might expect wireless support, as well as video, office, and email applications by default. Not everything works perfectly -- for example, the Tazpkg package manager file dependencies and the Flash plugin for Firefox. However, Slitaz 1.0 does provide a fast, responsive, stable, and workable GNU/Linux system usable on older PCs. It also seems to be a great distribution to use as a rescue CD or to use as a baseline GNU/Linux system where you choose what additional packages you want to include. (It even includes a tool called Tazlito to create your own distribution.) The good impressions left by this first release guarantee that I'll be following further releases with keen interest.
* On Puppy Linux 4.00 they said: Puppy seems to have an application for just about every need already included. There are also hundreds of additional programs available for download via the Petget utility. The new Puppy 4.00 release is the cat's meow. Puppy Linux 4.00 is fast, reliable (on my systems it ran for days with no issue), has good wireless support, new scanner tools that work well, all the necessary multimedia codecs, and has a minimalistic yet usable approach that allows older computers to be functional machines again. Puppy also excels as a rescue CD or OS. Puppy also has good documentation.
* CodingExperiments.com wasn't very impressed with Foresight Linux 2.0.2.1. They had trouble with the installer as well as disappointment in the GUI: The installation process was fairly linear and simple, with an attractive theme. However, I am not happy with the partitioning system. I also specified to use the GRUB bootloader instead of the default EXTLINUX. I rebooted, and got, instead of a bootloader? "err3err4". Huh? I tried the installation again. This time, I left the bootloader with EXTLINUX, and everything worked fine.
Post-installation I briefly had a sense of relief, as things appeared only gone uphill from there, especially compared to the nightmares that I endured with 2.0. I had a window manager after the installation (metacity), and the package manager was a little bit better in terms of telling me what?s going on. So, yeah. That illusion was partially shattered when I rebooted.
* PlanetOSS reviewed the Gentoo-based SabayonLinux 3.5. They had this to say: The live DVD booting is a lot faster than the previous versions. This version also sports a new boot/installation/desktop themes. I was able to get the 3D effects running with just a single click.
Sabayon team developed a unique binary package management which makes it easy to install updates and applications. Entropy has a cursor based front-end "equo" and a GUI based front end "Spritz". The Spritz simplifies adding, removing and updating packages. The update notifier helps the users to update the system with three mouse clicks.
SabayonLinux 3.5 provides a truly "out of the box" experience. Sabayon brings the highly technical Gentoo to the masses. Though Sabayon may not be best suited for a first time Linux user, I highly recommend Sabayon for the users with some Linux experience.
Within hours of Mandriva's 2009 Alpha 2 release, three sites posted initial looks. Softpedia.com gave us lots of nice screenshots and a run-down of expected features while Blogbeebe dug a bit deeper to dredge up some early shortcomings. Lxer posted a first impression.
* Softpedia.com said: Mandriva 2009 brings KDE4 (default desktop), GNOME 2.23.4, and support for the newest NVIDIA and ATI/AMD video cards. Some of the interesting features that will be introduced [are] Linux kernel 2.6.26, GCC 4.3, Firefox 3.0, OpenOffice.org 3.0, revamped installer, and improved boot speed. There are also some rumors that X.org 7.4 and GRUB2 will be included.
* Blogbeebe wrote: Nobody seems to really dig in and use the distribution. If they did, they might discover that many of the latest distributions aren't just pretty, but pretty useless. Alpha 2 is also supposed to ship with the latest video drivers for both ATI and nVidia, which means that it should also support Compiz. Unfortunately alpha 2 did not, even though the current [stable] version of Mandriva does, and quite well. The first problem with this release is that I can't see /home directories. I then brought up Firefox and discovered that at least for KDE alpha 2 is still at version 2.0.0.15. And finally there's System Settings which I offer as but one example of the lack of polish in the KDE 4/4.1 desktop. Who knows when the situation will improve.
* Lxer posted:
All in all I'm impressed, both with Mandriva 2009.0, and it's only an Alpha release, and KDE4. Never thought I'd say that.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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As you probably noticed, Ladislav is on his much needed vacation this week and I'm filling in. Some of you might remember me from last year. I'm Susan Linton and I'll be with you doing the weekly newsletter for the next few weeks. Thank you for your patience and continued support while Ladislav is away. If you'd like to share any good distro news in the next few weeks, you may email me at srlinuxx at gmail dot com.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next installment will be published on Monday, 21 July 2008.
Susan Linton
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
GoboLinux
GoboLinux is a modular Linux distribution - it organizes the programs in a new, logical way. Instead of having parts of a program thrown at /usr/bin, other parts at /etc and yet more parts thrown at /usr/share/something/or/another, each program gets its own directory tree, keeping them all neatly separated and allowing the user to see everything that's installed in the system and which files belong to which programs in a simple and obvious way.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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