 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 324, 12 October 2009 |
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Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It was a bit of slow week as several popular distributions are gearing up for their next major releases, but the news has been exciting. Novell got annoyed at Red Hat claiming 75% market penetration and Debian was used to power an underwater vehicle to victory. Then I moved into Sabayon's latest to see if their KDE 4 build could perform any better than others I've tried. All this and more in this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (18MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
Sabayon Linux Five Point OH!
 We've been drifting through the Doldrums lately on the Good Ship Linuxlovers, but one bright isle is Sabayon Linux 5.0, or 5.o as the developers called it. Sabayon is the one distribution I keep thinking I'll switch to next release - just as soon as issue X is solved. I try it every release, but end up going back to my long-time favorite Gentoo. Sabayon seems like the perfect upgrade. It comes with most of the codecs and drivers folks need, it has some convenient default settings, and it always comes with lots of applications. This release brings all that with a performance boost and a great new look.
Installation
Sabayon Linux DVDs have always offered several boot modes. In the past they've offered a Gaming mode and Kiosk mode, among others. These are gone now, but a new XBMC mode is available. One can still boot to the desktop environment with or without the music or boot directly to the installer.
The installer is simple and easy-to-use. However, I did have some issues with the partitioner. Having just installed a new hard drive, I needed to set up partitions and thought I'd use the Sabayon installer for that. If memory serves, Sabayon adapted portions of Anaconda for their installer several version back and I thought it would be up to the job. Depending upon your perspective, it may have been. The issue I had with it was its insistence that it knew better than me how to arrange my partitions. I kid you not. I'd set up a few partitions in the order and size I wanted, and then they would just mysteriously rearrange themselves to meet some developer's idea of how they should be ordered. And it would not allow me to set up some unused partitions. It insisted they all have names and filesystems. I messed with it for a while but finally gave up and fired up fdisk. The install proceeded without incident after that. I chose to use the Ext4 filesystem and installed all software. There isn't a complete individual package selection, but broad categories and a few optional packages are listed one can disable. One can set up user accounts and a root password is desired, even though by default the first user account will be set up as the administrator. The GRUB bootloader will be installed if and where you wish and it'll try to detect and include other systems. That part is a bit hit and miss, but most are.
The Sabayon boot process isn't going to win any races. In fact, it seems rather slow by today's standards, but it gets there. It's nice that all the hardware is configured automagically, including 3D graphical drivers, and even CPU Scaling is set to ondemand for me. I didn't have to do anything except boot and start customizing the desktop appearance.
Desktop and Applications
The new theme for this release looks really great. It's tasteful and understated. Some versions of Sabayon in the past could be considered a bit gawdy, but the graphics for this release are quite attractive. However, the windows retain the plain decoration and style from KDE 4. I'm not sure why Sabayon developers stuck with the stock KDE window theme when they include some nice ones such as QtCurve and Klearlooks. Sabayon also has six or seven extra wallpapers if someone wanted something a bit more colorful. Unfortunately, I'm still not able to stretch a wallpaper across two displays, but that's on KDE.
The Sabayon Linux KDE 4.3.1 Environment
(full image size: 500kB, screen resolution 1680x1050 pixels)
Desktop effects are enabled by default and for the first time I was almost able to enjoy them. Whether the credit goes to Sabayon developers or KDE developers, I don't know, but the performance of KDE 4 in Sabayon is much improved over my past experiences with KDE 4. One of the most annoying issues with KDE 4 in the past was slow response times when using KMail and Akregator. Again, I don't know where the credit belongs, but both are much more tolerable in Sabayon's KDE 4.3.1. Akregator still pulls in agonizingly slow and random, but switching between feeds and articles is much more responsive. Also, I found it a bit annoying that some of my settings were lost in-between uses - again, I recall that being a characteristic of KDE 4. In the end, I disabled the special effects, desktop searches, and Konqueror plug-ins and javascript in order to feel more comfortable. Still I wasn't able to enjoy any screensavers. Even asciiquarium taxed the CPU and ran rather choppy and slow.
Sabayon Linux ships with a customized Linux kernel 2.6.31, Xorg 7.4, and GCC 4.4.1. Besides the mass of KDE applications, Sabayon includes several other handy apps. For multimedia enjoyment your choices include VLC media player, XBMC media center, and Amarok, although Dragon Player is the default for most video and DVD purposes. OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 is included for those pesky work tasks and Firefox 3.5.3 is available for Web surfing. Both of these seem quite peppy and Firefox is equipped with the plug-ins needed for media playback. Yakuake, NVIDIA Settings, and Wicd are also found. But where was the GIMP? Ah, there it is in Sulfur.
Package Management
Sabayon Linux is based on Gentoo and as such many telltale signs can still be seen under the hood. One of these signs is Portage and the /etc/make.conf file. While Portage is intact, operative, and directed at Gentoo repositories, Sabayon comes with its own package management system set up to use Sabayon binary packages. Sulfur is the graphical front-end to Entropy which can also be used in a terminal with equo. This can loosely be equated to the Synaptic front-end for APT which can also be used in a terminal with apt-get. At the commandline one can install by typing equo install <package name>. I like the commandline version for quick and easy installs when I know the name of the application, but if I need to search or examine the dependencies I prefer the compact nature of the results in Sulfur.
The Sulfur package management interface
(full image size: 262kB, screen resolution 1680x1050 pixels)
Sulfur has the same basic attributes and functionalities as other graphical package management tools - lists of applications by category, search by keywords, mark for installation, review, and apply. Sulfur looks a bit different than many of the others, but it doesn't take long to acclimate to its interface. Sabayon also comes with an update applet that sits in the System Tray to alert the user when updates are available. When activated, it opens Sulfur to take care of the actual work. Soon after my system was installed, an update to Entropy came down the pipe which then triggered a mass update of 186 packages. I was a bit hesitant to click that "Commit Actions" button, but it finished with no problems.
Conclusion
I always like Sabayon Linux, but I've never quite made the switch. I know I need to bite the bullet and just get used to KDE 4, and perhaps Sabayon 5.o will be the one to do it for me. It's the best implementation of KDE 4 I've tried to use, but it still has quite a few rough edges. KDE 4.3.2 hasn't shown up in Entropy yet, but I'm hoping it will soon and perhaps I'll see even more improvement. In any case, I think I'll be sticking with Sabayon and its KDE 4 for a while to see how it fares over the long haul.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Debian develops kFreeBSD port, Debian submarine wins competition, Red Hat and Novell argue numbers, Gentoo release statistics, Mandriva re-introduces itself
 The Debian project announced the port of the Debian system to the FreeBSD kernel in 32- and 64-bit architectures. These ports will see official support with the upcoming release (codenamed 'Squeeze') and will be given equal importance in determining release status. Motivations include broader choice and the ability to benefit from some of the components admired in free BSD systems such as the OpenBSD Packet Filter and NDIS kernel drivers. This subproject has been a long time in the making, with it roots going way back to 1999. It's been a long and arduous journey and continued challenges are inevitable, but as the Linux Weekly News said, this is one more step towards their goal of creating a universal operating system. In their informative piece, Koen Vervloesem delineates the history of the project and describes the some of the technical aspects for the current and future releases. This port comes with all the trimmings such as an official port site, fine manual, wiki, a #debian-kbsd IRC channel on irc.oftc.net, and install CDs.
In other Debian news, a press release announced that Debian was a key component of the winning entry in this year's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, sponsored by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research. The Cornell University team took first place as their submarine completed the challenging course which required the vehicles "pass through a gate, follow a path, ram a submerged buoy, fire through a square target with small torpedoes, drop markers into bins containing simulated targets, recover a PVC target and surface through an octagon shape, all without human intervention." Debian and other Open Source software was used for the on-board computer of the vehicle as well in the labs and on servers. The Cornell software team has replaced all their Windows, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, and Gentoo installs with Debian because, as the software team leader said, it "works amazingly well for us." Underwater videos of the winning run can be seen on the Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle web site.
* * * * *
 Developers celebrated Gentoo's tenth birthday by releasing a live DVD recently that received quite a bit of attention. An updated 10.1 was released this past weekend to address a few bugs discovered with 10.0. Probably while reminiscing, but officially in response to inquiries, Robin Johnson, aka robbat2, a long-time Gentoo developer, posted some interesting release statistics for Gentoo for the last five years. He has broken the numbers down into architectures and media categories for fine-grained comparison, but he doesn't appear to have included numbers on Stage tarballs. For the 2005.1 release the universal install CD received 374388 hits. The 2007.0 and 2008.0 releases garnered the most hits at 1046455 and 968065 respectively. Interestingly, the 10.0 Birthday DVD recorded 33703 hits in just five days.
* * * * *
 Red Hat Executive Vice President Paul Cormier was quoted as saying that Red Hat has earned 75% of the paid Linux market at their annual analyst event in New York last week. While it was sandwiched in between other financial reports, forecasts, and plans for the future, that one quote seemed to bounce around the Internet getting quite a bit of attention. In fact, it got the attention and ire of the management at Novell. Novell public relations manager Ian Bruce wasted no time in setting the record straight. Bruce quoted an independent study that pegs Red Hat at about 62% of the Linux business market. Whatever the true numbers, Red Hat certainly seems to be faring quite well these days in this depressed economy.
* * * * *
 Mandriva is hoping to re-introduce itself to the public by publishing a series of articles examining their place in the Linux landscape and the community's role in their evolution. The first of these articles, Being a Linux distribution publisher, describes some of the steps involved in creating a Linux distribution. These include the software selection and integration processes, original tool creation, integrating graphics, hardware support planning, quality assurance, and development packages. One fun fact states there are over 20,000 software packages on Mandriva mirrors. Upcoming entries are titled 1001 ways to contribute and a new contribution option, so keep an eye on The Official Mandriva Blog for those.
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| Released Last Week |
Tiny Core Linux 2.4, 2 4.1
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 2.4, a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux GUI desktop: "Tiny Core 2.4 is now posted. Change log: updated flwm_restart to use new capability of menu refresh; updated appbrowser - dropped access to TCE repository, 'Install Local' defaults to optional/; updated wbar.sh to read extra configurations from $HOME/.wbar; updated flpicsee to v1.0 - replaced Alt with Ctrl hotkyes; updated setbackground to process compressed logo template, saves much space; updated .Xdefaults for aterm transparency mode; updated .xsession to check and start flit and/or watcher...." Find more details in the changelog. Update: The developers have later released a bug-fix version: "Version 2.4.1 is posted and has a single character change, which only affects special permissions, e.g., setuid, and only when installing to the file system, i.e., not mounting. This fixes the X.Org not starting issue under such conditions."
Dragora GNU/Linux 1.1
Matias Fonzo has announced the release of Dragora GNU/Linux 1.1, a 100% "libre" distribution based on the concept of simplicity and inspired by Slackware Linux: "Dragora GNU/Linux 1.1 is the evolution of its previous version 1.0. Notable changes in this version are: Linux Kernel 2.6.30.9 free; toolchain - Binutils 2.19.1, GCC 4.3.4, glibc 2.9, Coreutils 7.6, util-linux-ng 2.16.1; X.Org Server 1.6.4 and Mesa 7.5.2; the inclusion of KDE 4.3.1; new compression format based on the LZMA algorithm; support for Free Java and JavaScript through Icedtea6 and Rhino; support for Bluetooth and IrDA devices; support for printing with CUPS 1.3.11; support for the PCMCIA subsystem; new language support - Galician. It is worth mentioning the large environment such as KDE 4.3.1 (included on CD 2) and the numerous corrections and improvements in the packaging system and the Dragora system start-up." Read the full release announcement (scroll down for the English version) for further details.
LliureX 9.09
LliureX 9.09, an Ubuntu-based educational distribution developed by the Council of Culture, Education and Sport at the Municipality of Valencia in Spain, has been released. New features and software packages: a LliureX control centre that allows teachers to control the activity of students in the computer room, with support for thin clients; F-Spot - an application for managing digital images; Gobby - a collaborative editor; Gmount-ISO - a graphical utility for mounting ISO images; new tools for cleaning and restoring a desktop; new tools for creating educational digital objects, such as resource preparation, mind maps and desktop recordings; a new TrueType font installer; a set of new custom tools for configuring applications and for broadcasting audio and video.... Read the detailed release announcement (in Spanish) for additional information.
LliureX features lots of software with a GNOME interface
(full image size: 220kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Clonezilla Live 1.2.2-31
Steven Shiau has released a new stable build of Clonezilla Live, a specialist, Debian-based live CD designed for hard disk cloning tasks: "We are happy to announce that Clonezilla Live 1.2.2-31 is the new stable release. In this release some programs were updated and some bugs fixed. Features: based on Debian 'Lenny' repository as of 2009-10-05; Linux kernel 2.6.30; updated Partclone to 0.1.9, Memtest86+ to 4.00, live-initramfs to 1.157.3; bugs in partclone.xfs and partclone.fat have been fixed; by default '-r' option is on; option '-g auto' is skipped when GRUB 2 is found in the restored OS; an option to mount NFS 4 server was added to prep-ocsroot; language files have been updated...." See the release announcement for additional technical details.
* * * * *
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 database summary
* * * * *
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next installment will be published on Monday, 19 October 2009.
Susan Linton
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Chimera Linux
Chimera Linux is an independent distribution which uses an unusual combination of technologies behind the scenes. Chimera Linux uses BSD userland command line tools, the Clang/LLVM compiler toolchain, Dinit for service management, and APK for package management. Chimera Linux strives to keep the design simple while still providing the experience and features most users want, such as multiple desktop environments, Flatpak support, a graphical package manager, and easy access to desktop configuration tools. Chimera Linux does not have a system installer, instead providing manual command line instructions to bootstrap the operating system from a live environment.
Status: Active
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Questions and answers: AppArmor, home movies, tabs in Vim, syntax highlighting |
| Questions and answers: Recovering open files, starting a new Linux distro |
| Tips and tricks: Copying columns of text, organizing files, creating torrents |
| Tips and tricks: Managing boot environments with zedenv |
| Questions and answers: Maintaining DNS Settings |
| Questions and answers: Why init keeps running |
| Tips and tricks: Simple rsync examples |
| Questions and answers: Android, ROMs, and the gap between laptops and smartphones |
| Questions and answers: Distributions which provide init diversity |
| Questions and answers: Finding and removing meta-data |
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