 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 349, 12 April 2010 |
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Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The constantly evolving development branches of major distributions are a double-edge sword: on one hand, they offer the very latest applications and technologies, but on the other, they tend to break in the most inopportune moments. The sidux project, which aims to stabilise Debian "sid" and release it as a well-tested, yet cutting-edge distro, could be a great compromise between the typical geek's two conflicting desires. Read on for our first-look review of sidux 2009-04 and a brief interview with the distribution's lead developers. In the news section, the Arch Linux release engineering team updates the ISO images release process, Gentoo announces the launch of a new cooperative Wiki project, TuxRadar presents a comprehensive group test of today's most prominent lightweight distributions, and North Korea is rumoured to have developed its own Linux-based operating system. Also in this issue, news about an interesting multi-boot live DVD containing 11 mini-distributions and a brief look at some of today's gaming options on Linux. Happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: Trying on sidux
- News: Arch's new release process, Gentoo Wiki, group test of lightweight distributions, EmErgE's live DVD with 15 distributions, North Korea's Red Star Linux
- Questions and answers: Games for Linux
- Released last week: DragonFly BSD 2.6.1, Calculate Linux 10.4, MOPSLinux 7.0
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 10.10 release schedule, Fedora 13 Beta
- New distributions: Metamorphose Linux, Itis Linux, Netlive, QubesOS
- Reader comments
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (30MB) and MP3 (32MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Trying on sidux
 The sidux distribution is one which has been on my to-review list for a while. It's a small project which makes a bold effort to take Debian's Unstable repository and turn it into a functioning day-to-day operating system. Prior to trying out this ambitious distro, I had a chance to chat with two of the project's developers, Ferdinand Thommes and Chris Hildebrandt.
* * * * *
DW: Is it always a lower-case "s" in "sidux"?
FT: Yes, it's always a lower-case "s". Most magazines ignore the trademark and just follow their routines where distributions start with an upper-case character and that at the start of a sentence you always have an upper-case character too. I mostly gave up fighting that.
DW: sidux is based on Debian's "sid" repository. What changes or additions do you make to produce sidux?
CH: From a technical point of view, the most important changes are our release and ISO build system (pyfll), our installer and our kernels. The sidux kernels are not Debian kernel-based, but vanilla kernels with a long list of patches in order to get most recent hardware support, balanced with stability. We have developed and do provide several of our own tools and applications, e.g. Ceni - our replacement for NetworkManager. And of course we include our own artwork and documentation (manuals).
FT: As Debian "unstable" does not get released by Debian, firstly we needed an installer. It's graphical, easy to use and basic. Installation into full usable system is fast, usually 2-10 minutes, depending on hardware. We also offer a nice and easy tool to set up LAN and wireless networks called "ceni" (configure e/n/i). A lot of work went into the init scripts to make sidux as responsive as it is. Our own very recent kernel (2.6.33.1-10 right now) completes the picture. Other than that and the release art it's mostly pure Debian. We use Debian "unstable" packages as they come unless some core package is broken. In that case we will offer a fixed package in our sidux repository until Debian offers a fixed package (the patch goes upstream of course). So, if I had to guess, I would say sidux is 98% pure Debian.
DW: Who is your target audience? People who like the cutting edge, people with older hardware, developers?
FT: sidux is basically targeted at anyone. But, as it's based on "unstable", potential users will have to have the will and time to dig into how Linux/Debian works a little deeper. That will warrant a nice rolling release experience and at the same time the user learns a bit about the inner workings. The latter can't really be bad if you consider that nowadays everybody has sensitive data on their hard disks and too many people share it with the world unwillingly by staying ignorant to the security issues that today's world of computing brings along. Not every user wants to learn about his system or has the time to do so. Those are usually turned off by sidux after a few days where, on the other hand, real noobs adopt to it quite easily due to our support facilities that will pamper them through the obstacles.
We are rather focussed on new hardware as our kernels are always very current and offer good hardware detection. Older hardware runs fine with sidux Xfce or with LXDE as the desktop environment. In-depth information can be found in the release notes.
CH: All people who want to use Linux are welcome at sidux. We seem to attract mostly people who need support for recent hardware, those who search for performance and those who want the most recent versions of applications and tools. While we optimize sidux for modern hardware, sidux does a good job on older hardware too (if the initial hardware requirements are met). sidux users are not easy to target, you will find developers and server administrators, people who work with music or graphical arts, teachers, scientists, but also the "average" Linux users, and even many Linux beginners.
However, we are not targeting those who are not willing to read up a few lines, those who are not willing to learn something new, and those who expect to be spoon-fed.
DW: Debian's "sid" repository is, by name, unstable. Does that cause problems for you?
FT: Well, it's not as unstable as it might sound (given that we provide good support and watch Debian/incoming closely to catch problems before the user base gets hit). We see the term "unstable" more in the sense of constantly changing.
CH: It does produce a serious work load to our volunteer testers and our development and team. We strive to get fixes done via bug reports and patches to the responsible Debian maintainer and/or upstream authors, and - with serious breakages - sometimes place temporary fixed packages in our own repository. For our users the result is an almost always stable Debian "sid". For the remaining issues help is provided 24/7 via our IRC channels and our forums. Those who have used "stable" distributions before often tell us that sidux is more stable for them than anything else.
DW: What does sidux bring to the Linux community that users can't find in other distributions?
CH: Latest applications, latest hardware support, 100% Debian compatibility, direct access to developers, free community support at highest technical level, a real FOSS community distro without any business or sponsor deciding things.
FT: sidux is one of the fastest and most cutting-edge distros out there. But we don't follow the cutting-edge approach as "it's gotta be latest and greatest", stability comes first.
DW: Does your work flow back into Debian?
FT: Debian had a hard time accepting us for a while, (what is sidux good for?) It took quite a bit of work from our side to get to terms. Things have been easing up a lot during the past year. Lots of bug reports and patches go upstream, we share booths at Linux fairs. I am just now organising a mini-debconf for this year's LinuxTag conference in Berlin. sidux's own packages will move into Debian where that makes sense.
CH: Definitely, we do work very closely together with Debian maintainers and developers. Actually, our main goal is always to get problematic Debian packages fixed in Debian. We have no interest in duplicating Debian, just to improve it.
DW: Do you have any comments or messages for our readers? Any thoughts you'd like to share about sidux or the open source community?
FT: There are so many distros out there as DistroWatch splendidly shows us every day. Take a look at what sidux has to offer. sidux is brought to you by the developers and the community. It would not work without the community that gives support 24/7 on the forum and in IRC, translates the manual into, at the moment, 16 languages, works on art and many other things.
CH: Open source is possible and successful because of those who decide to help. While additional hackers are always needed, you will find that there is work for virtually everyone. You can help supporting others, translating, creating art work, testing and bug reporting, managing sub projects, communicating with upstream projects, presenting us at conventions - welcome aboard!
* * * * *
sidux 2009-04 - the welcoming screen
(full image size: 236kB, screen resolution 1152x864 pixels)
The sidux web site is an interesting study in red, black and white. It's a fairly plain layout with a menu down the left side for navigation. Visitors are able to read recent news, visit the project's Wiki, browse the forum and read the distro's manual. The distribution comes in three flavours:
- KDE full - equipped with KDE, a full range of applications and 16 languages
- KDE lite - also a KDE desktop, but with fewer software packages
- Xfce - a complete Xfce desktop
For the purposes of my experiment, I chose to download the Xfce edition.
The sidux live CD opens with a red-themed boot menu which has a collection of menus along the bottom of the screen. Users are able to select their preferred language, keyboard layout and kernel arguments prior to booting. After booting, sidux quickly starts an Xfce session and opens a window showing the system's release notes. The desktop is dotted with icons for browsing the file system, launching an IRC client and opening the project's manual. The IRC client automatically connects to the project's chat room where people can get help and exchange ideas.
sidux 2009-04 - disk partitioning
(full image size: 215kB, screen resolution 1152x864 pixels)
The installer is an interesting creation and deserves more than a passing mention. Like most installers, it guides the user through a series of screens gathering information on the disk layout, user accounts, the time zone and how the bootloader should be configured. What stands out is that the installer's screens are arranged as tabs and the user can jump back and forth through in the installer screens in any order. Most aspects of the installer are friendly and straightforward, though I think having the main installer window disappear when the windows for the partition editor or time zone selector appear may be unsettling to newcomers. One aspect I appreciated was that the installer asks if the user would like to have the secure shell server run post-install. Once all questions have been answered, the installer copies about 1.6 GB of software to the hard drive, at which point the user can reboot the system. Up to this point everything had gone smoothly, or so I thought.
The first time I booted my local installation of sidux, the boot process came to an early halt and told me the partition housing my root (/) directory had to be manually checked. I ran fsck on the partition, rebooted and encountered no problems on the next start-up. This pattern of events occurred on both of my machines.
The 1.6 GB of software fills out the application menu fairly well. sidux (Xfce edition) comes with the Iceweasel web browser, BitTorrent client, GParted, a calendar, and tools for viewing and scanning images. It also includes AbiWord and Gnumeric for office work. Additionally we find a multimedia player, file browser, file archiver, calculator, disc burner and Xfce's Application Finder. There are also several tools for changing settings, such as the desktop appearance, managing printers and just about every other aspect of the system. The sidux distribution comes equipped to play MP3 files and common video formats, but not Flash. Something I did not find in the application menu was a graphical front-end to the package manager.
sidux uses the APT family of programs for managing software and I had no trouble installing, removing and updating packages from the command line. While the distribution has its own repositories, the big attraction here is Debian's collection of software. The package manager provides over 28,000 items for users to choose from. The sidux manual has some interesting comments on keeping packages up to date which is a must-read for people who aren't already familiar with Debian's command-line package managing tools and rolling releases.
sidux 2009-04 - browsing for and editing documents
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While test driving sidux, I ran the operating system on a generic desktop (2.5 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM and NVIDIA video card), my HP laptop (dual-core 2 GHz CPU, 3 GB of RAM and Intel video card) and a VirtualBox virtual machine. I found sidux did an excellent job of handling the desktop's hardware -- video, sound and networking all worked as expected. Things started out well on my laptop too, with my sound, video and touchpad all working without problems. Unfortunately, sidux wasn't able to make use of my Intel wireless card, nor did it make use of my Novatel mobile modem. Performance on both machines was very good and I found sidux able to function smoothly in the virtual environment with 256 MB of memory. The operating system was able to properly suspend and resume my laptop, even when running from the CD, which was a nice bonus.
Security in sidux didn't leave me much to complain about. The system asked me to create a root password and a non-root account at install time and the system doesn't turn on any network services, unless asked to do so. Regular user accounts are locked down, preventing others from reading the user's files, though the root account isn't similarly closed to the curious. Being directly connected with Debian "sid", the distribution gets regular updates.
sidux 2009-04 - managing software packages and my schedule
(full image size: 239kB, screen resolution 1152x864 pixels)
Having played with sidux for a week, I find that it's an interesting operating system and brings a special collection of characteristics to the table, some of which almost seem contradictions. For one, the Xfce edition is very light of resources, a trait generally found in distributions targeting older hardware. But sidux isn't looking back, it's looking ahead, it's cutting edge, designed with the newest hardware in mind. The operating system itself doesn't do much hand-holding (such as one might expect from Mandriva or Ubuntu), but sidux does have some excellent documentation and, from what I've seen thus far, a polite and friendly community. The distro is based on Debian, but has a flavour, a character, of its own. I wouldn't recommend sidux to new-comers to the Linux scene, but for people who want to keep up with the latest and greatest without any extra fluff in their faces, sidux seems like a good fit.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Arch's new release process, Gentoo Wiki, group test of lightweight distributions, EmErgE's live DVD with 15 distributions, North Korea's Red Star Linux
 The release engineering (releng) team of Arch Linux, an increasingly popular rolling-release distribution, has announced changes to its stable release process. In future, new installation CD images will be made available from the project's build server for public testing and bug reporting. Once all show-stopper bugs are dealt with, a new official release will be announced: "Due to time constraints, we have decided to make a slight alteration in the release process. We (releng) build testing images and publish them on the build server. Releng does only minimal testing; we will rely on the community to try them out and report back to us. Bugs should go to the bug tracker under the release engineering project. Once there is enough feedback, and there are no relevant known bugs any more, then we can do a new official release." The latest available testing images can be downloaded from build.archlinux.org/isos/, with a changelog available in the same directory. A list of known issues is published here.
* * * * *
 The Gentoo Linux project has announced the launch of a Gentoo Wiki "After the mostly positive feedback on the recent Wiki discussion, we have now gone ahead, formed a preliminary team consisting of both users and developers, and put up a project page. All constructive feedback on this new project is welcome. We'd also like to invite any users and developers, who are willing to help to make this a success, to join us. At this point we are especially looking for people who can help with: the initial setup and configuration of a MediaWiki instance; the design of a custom Gentoo theme for MediaWiki (including graphics and CSS); the internal organization of the Wiki; moderation." The Gentoo Wiki is not yet available to the public, but some additional information, including the project's goals, can be found on the Gentoo Wiki Project page: "The Gentoo Wiki Project is responsible for the creation and maintenance of a wiki for general use by both developers and users of Gentoo. The goal of the Gentoo Wiki is to provide an accessible web-based service for easy collaboration on various documents relating to the development and use of the Gentoo distribution and for related community needs."
* * * * *
 Light and fast Linux distributions seem to be in constant demand among the DistroWatch readers. Last week, TuxRadar published a detailed comparative review of several lightweight distributions, including Damn Small Linux, CrunchBang Linux, Lubuntu, Puppy Linux, SliTaz GNU/Linux, Tiny Core Linux, Unity Linux and VectorLinux. The winner? SliTaz. From the article: "We were looking for a distro to work painlessly in a cramped hardware environment. Honourable mentions must go to DSL and Tiny Core at this point, which have clambered into the territory of the minuscule. It's amazing how usable a system can be that takes up less space on your drive than your holiday pictures. Puppy Linux and Unity were both easy to use, although the latter was a bit more polished (and bigger). There can be only one winner in the context of our group test, and it should be SliTaz. It's fast, easy on memory, and comes with a considered selection of apps. Not being able to install new software easily apart from stuff in the SliTaz package format is one of the few drawbacks, but for a fast, lightweight desktop it's hard to beat."
* * * * *
 Pro-Linux.de, an excellent German web site dedicated to Linux news and reviews, reports about an interesting multi-boot live DVD called "EmErgE's MultiISO LiveDVD", containing 11 Linux distributions. The selection is geared towards small and specialist products that don't take too much space. The list includes BackTrack, GeeXBoX, Damn Small Linux, Clonezilla Live, Damn Vulnerable Linux, Trinity Rescue Kit, Tiny Core Linux, Helix, Puppy Linux, Byzantine OS and Pentoo Linux. Also on the boot menu are "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor", BKO (boot.kernel.org), FreeDOS and DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) for securely wiping hard disk contents. Currently, the product is only available as a live DVD, but according to the article, the community behind the project is working on a live USB edition. If you understand German, you can read the brief article here. Quick download links: MultiISO-2.0-final.iso (4,443MB, torrent).
The EmErgE's MultiISO live DVD allows booting into 15 different Linux distributions.
(full image size: 54kB, screen resolution 640x480 pixels)
* * * * *
Finally, a link to an article about a rumoured existence of a Linux distribution being developed in North Korea. Like with everything in the Hermit Kingdom, details are sketchy and speculations are ripe, but BBC has put together a story on the subject, based on a report by a Russian student studying in the country. The distribution is called "Red Star Linux": "The Red Star operating system uses a popular Korean folk song as its start-up music and numbers years using a calendar which starts counting from the birth of state founder Kim Il-sung, making 2010 the 99th year. It is Linux-based but is heavily influenced by Microsoft with versions of the software giant's Office programmes, including several familiar games. It runs only in the Korean language and takes 15 minutes to install, reports said. It has games, an e-mail system known as Pigeon and a Mozilla's Firefox Internet browser - which has the North Korean government web site as a home page." The Register also covers the story with its usual tongue-in-cheek writing style: "Red Star Linux was devised in 2002 and is still 'not entirely stable' the reviewer said - but what can you expect from QA process where you're shot for questioning the Dear Leader's command line?"
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Games for Linux
Here-for-a-good-time asks: Why is there such a lack of games for Linux?
DistroWatch answers: There are lots of games for Linux, many of them of very good quality. And I'm not just saying that in defense of my own attempts at writing games for Tuxers. The Linux OS is a time waster's paradise and not only for people who think it's fun to compile their own software. A quick search turns up over a thousand game packages in the Ubuntu repositories alone, with quite a variety. Anything from text-based adventure games, to board games, to flight simulators, to racing games, to side-scrollers, to first-person shooters can be found for Linux. Take a peek at live.linux-gamers.net, a project which packs games into a Linux-based live DVD.
But perhaps the question is more about popular commercial games than games in general. Most new titles for consoles, for example, aren't likely to have Linux ports. The lack of effort being put into Linux ports of popular new titles is a simple matter of economics. There's a lot of debate over how many Linux users there are, but let's assume for a moment that Linux makes up around 10% of the desktop/notebook market. And, for the sake of debate, what if we assume that all of those 10% don't dual-boot, nor own another computer, and none have a gaming console. We're obviously into make-believe land here, but let's pretend. Of that 10%, let's assume that a full half of them are gamers and, for that matter, none of them violate copyright (remember, this is make-believe). That would mean a commercial game for Linux would be targeting, at best, 5% of the desktop market.
Once you subtract the members of the community who claim that all software should be free (as in gratis), people who can't afford big-name titles and the folks who use open-source software only, you're looking at a pretty small target, even in our single-booting-gamer-heavy-no-piracy-make-believe world. Those aren't attractive numbers for commercial game developers and from here it gets worse. There are a lot of distributions. Each with their own quirks, library and kernel versions and package types. If you look at the current top ten distributions on DistroWatch's PHR list there are four different package formats represented. All of this requires a wider range of skills in developing and packaging, plus more time spent testing. What it boils down to is that that's a lot of resources to spend targeting less than 5% of the market. Granted, game studios could statically compile their software and write their own installer to work across all distributions, but there's still a questionable cost-to-benefit ratio.
If you'd like to encourage game studios to develop for Linux, I recommend supporting projects such as World of Goo and other indie efforts. Perhaps contact Indie-Fund and tell them you'd like to see a specific Linux or cross-platform category where people could donate to Linux-friendly projects. When studios see money flowing into Linux games, development will increase in that area.
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| Released Last Week |
DragonFly BSD 2.6.1
Matthew Dillon has announced the release of DragonFly BSD 2.6.1, a BSD operating system originally forked from the FreeBSD 4.x code base: "The DragonFly 2.6 release is here! Three release options are now available for 32-bit: our bare-bones CD ISO image, a bare-bones bootable USB disk-key image (minimum 1G USB stick needed), and a GUI bootable USB disk-key image with a full X environment. The GUI USB image replaces the DVD ISO image we had in the previous release, to work around issues with DVDs simply being too slow to boot an X environment from. Two release options are available for 64-bit: our bare-bones CD ISO image and our bare-bones bootable USB disk-key image. The 64-bit release is now fully supported." Read the full release announcement which includes a complete list of changes and improvements.
Calculate Linux 10.4
Alexander Tratsevskiy has announced the release of Calculate Linux 10.4, a Gentoo-based distribution set for desktops and servers: "Calculate Linux 10.4 released. Features: out-of-the-box client-server solution for small and medium businesses; 100% compatible with Gentoo; interactive system build and configuration process allows to make changes in the distribution; can be installed on USB Flash drive or USB hard disk. Main changes: added new Calculate Linux Desktop with GNOME desktop environment; added 'cl-passwd' that allows to change user's domain password in CDS authentication facility; reduced system's footprint...." Here is the full release announcement.
Calculate Linux 10.4 - a Gentoo-based family of Linux distributions for various purposes
(full image size: 677kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Salix OS 13.0 "Live"
Salix OS is a lightweight, Slackware-based distribution with Xfce. The project's first live CD edition was released yesterday: "After a few months of development we are pleased to release the final version of Salix Live 13.0 (32-bit). It faithfully replicates Salix 13.0.2 from which it adopts its full choice of application (Xfce, Firefox, the full OpenOffice.org suite, GIMP, Exaile, etc.). Salix Live offers a complete working desktop which can be used in a completely nomadic but customizable environment. The 'Persistence Wizard' will enable to easily preserve any work and modifications. Alternatively, Salix Live can be used as a fully-fledged demo of Salix OS that can easily be installed with the help of our brand new graphical installer." For further information please see the release announcement.
MOPSLinux 7.0
MOPSLinux 7.0, a Slackware-based desktop Linux distribution with a custom package management tool, has been released. According to the release announcement (in Russian), this is a major upgrade and a very different system from the earlier version 6.2.2. Some of the notable changes include: a completely rewritten system installer; a much more powerful and complete package management utility; availability of several desktop environments for selection; availability of several installation modes; first release with support for 64-bit systems. Major components: Linux kernel 2.6.32.10, X.Org Server 1.7.6, KDE 4.4.2, Xfce 4.7.0-git, Openbox 3.4.11, LXDE 0.5.0, OpenOffice.org 3.2.0, Firefox 3.6.2.
MOPSLinux 7.0 - a Slackware-based distribution with an advance package manager and powerful system installer
(full image size: 689kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
SystemRescueCd 1.5.2
François Dupoux has released SystemRescueCd 1.5.2, a Gentoo-based live CD containing tools for data rescue and disk management tasks. What's new? Enabled framebuffer console to fix extended VGA modes; moved modules to embedded kernel initramfs to reduce memory requirement; use LZMA compression instead of gzip for initramfs.igz to save space; updated alternative kernels to 2.6.33.02 (altker32 + altker64); updated standard kernels to 2.6.32.11 (rescuecd + rescue64); fixed the 'dostartx' option that startx X.Org automatically; fixed the X.Org auto-configuration script used by "wizard"; the default isolinux boot screen is now based on a menu; updated Squashfs to version 4.0 with LZMA compression." The complete changelog can be found on the project's Changes page.
Parted Magic 4.10
Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 4.10, a live utility medium designed for hard disk partitioning and data rescue tasks: Parted Magic 4.10 updates grep to 2.6.3, BusyBox to 1.16.1, SimpleBurn to 1.5.0, sshfs-fuse to 2.2, Linux kernel to 2.6.32.11. There are a few new programs as well: EncFS 1.5.2, GEncFS 1.0.0, GSSHFS 1.0.0, RLog 1.4, UNetbootin 429 and emelFM 0.6.0. Parted is patched with updates from Ubuntu to reverse a decision to use a BLKRRPART instead of the BLKPG ioctls that worked. GPicView doesn't segfault any more. FAT32 file systems now mounts as UTF8 by default. Many enhancements were made to the handling of SCSI device at boot. Creating bookmarks with Chromium no longer crashes the program." 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 |
Ubuntu 10.10
The Ubuntu project has published a development roadmap leading towards the release of version 10.10 (code name "Maverick Meerkat") of the Ubuntu family of distributions in October 2010. The development will kick off in early May, with the first alpha scheduled for release on 3 June 2010. This will be followed by three more alpha builds, one beta and one release candidate before the final release on 28 October 2010. For more information please see the Maverick Release Schedule page on Ubuntu Wiki.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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New distributions added to waiting list
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 19 April 2010.
Jesse Smith and 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 |
| Star Labs |
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| Random Distribution | 
XeroLinux
XeroLinux is an Arch Linux-based distribution with a choice of GNOME or KDE Plasma as the two preferred desktops. Some of the features of the distribution include the Calamares installer, various under-the-hood tweaks and optimisations, built-in support for community-built AUR packages as well as Flatpak packages, and the availability of various desktop and bootloader themes developed in-house. After being discontinued for a time in 2024, XeroLinux was revived and turned into a commercial distribution.
Status: Active
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Questions and answers: Linux adoption |
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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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